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Control de las condiciones meteorológicas para evitar plagas en las aceitunas
Olive producers are an essential part of agricultural sector particulary in Italy and, in general, in southern Europe where they represent a significant share of the agricultural economy. More than 1.8 million farms work on olive production in the EU. 40% of all farms are in Spain and Italy, and 60% in Greece.
La plaga de la mosca del olivo
La mosca del olivo, denominada Bactrocera oleae, es una grave plaga del olivo. Las larvas atacan en los frutos del olivo y el daño causado por la tunelización de las larvas en el fruto resulta en pérdidas importantes de la cosecha. TeamDev, una empresa de software italiana, utiliza el software de Libelium ¡Waspmote Plug & Sense! Plataforma de sensores to collect information localizing weather conditions to support farming management. TeamDev works in precision farming sector, developing software and methodologies for decision support systems in agricultural management. This company has involved in many innovative projects related to agriculture with the aim of improving technological systems for monitoring crops. In this case, TeamDev has been working in tight collaboration with Assoprol Umbría, una organización de productores de aceitunas de Umbría, para desarrollar una plataforma web para recoger información sobre la presencia de la mosca del olivo y apoyar una acción oportuna y un plan de defensa.
Umbria, Italia
Datos para predecir la difusión de moscas
In the developed software, farmers can enter data about traps and adults of olive fruit fly captured. This software presents also data from the motes that is useful to create the model of fly diffusion based on weather conditions in each olive grove. Model can predict the diffusion of flies, a useful tool to elaborate attack alarms in an early stage of fly spread. Timeliness allows protective measures against olive fruit fly, containing damage of drupes and production’s losses. With production losses avoided with the deployment, the farmer covers the technology investment within a year.
From a quantitative point of view, larvae cause the damage by the removal of the significant proportion of the pulp which as a consequence results in reduction in the yield of olives. Part of the production is also lost due to premature falling of the attacked fruit. A qualitative aspect is the significant deterioration in the quality of the oil extracted from olives with a high percentage of attacks by larvae. Oil obtained from infected olives has a high acidity level (expressed as oleic acid, from 2% to 10% depending on the percentage of the infestation) and a lower shelf life as it has a higher peroxide value. The predisposition to the fly’s attacks is tied to several factors. The main ones are climatic (temperature and rainfall), so marked differences can occur from year to year. To control olive fruit fly, a combination of three techniques must be used to determine when to apply insecticides: (1) traps, used to capture adults and verify the growth of population in the olive grove; (2) study of the larvae in the olive and their damage after sampling and observation in laboratory, (3) monitoring weather conditions conducive to the growth of fly’s population. The results of both techniques provides information about fly spread.
TeamDev utiliza ¡Waspmote Plug & Sense! Plataforma de sensores to offer its customers a service for monitoring specific weather conditions in each plot, like temperature, humidity, rainfall, atmospheric pressure among others. Weather data integrates other information in software developed for farming management. Sensors permit scientific observation and measurement that represent an innovative way to manage critical agricultural operation. Moreover, the impact of the fly on the acidity of the oil obtained from olives, decreases the retail price of the crop. So, avoiding pest, increases the quality of production and rises the retail price. Teamdev chose ¡Waspmote Plug & Sense! Plataforma de sensores por su bajo coste en comparación con la calidad y con las estaciones meteorológicas tradicionales, también por la versatilidad del código y la flexibilidad de su uso.
Esquema de seguimiento meteorológico
“The use of sensor allows to provide a new service to Teamdev’s customers and extend skills and areas of activity. Precision farming has become the future way to manage crops for the continued supply of food within the ecological, economic and social limits. The ability of these devices to enhance and enable day-to-day monitoring promises increase agricultural efficiency”, explains Andrea Cruciani, CEO at Teamdev. “This case about pest management in olive groves is a good example of the important applications that ¡Waspmote Plug & Sense! Plataforma de sensores offers to plan “just-in-time” treatments based on weather condition and also to build predictive models”, says Alicia Asín, Libelium’s CEO. Sensors provide accurate information about important parameters: ambient temperature, humidity, millimeters of rainfall, atmospheric pressure, wind direction, wind speed, soil moisture, leaf wetness. These parameters are essential to evaluate climate peculiarity in each area and to control growth’s environment.
Sensors are installed in areas where local weather information are unavailable because of absence of other weather stations. Each sensor has a solar panel that ensures a longer power autonomy of the devices. The ¡Waspmote Plug & Sense! Plataforma de sensores están conectados por Meshlium a un servicio en la nube de ArcGIS online, un Plataforma geográfica ESRIque recoge todos los datos y los geolocaliza en mapas. Los datos de cada mota se envían cada hora y están disponibles para monitorizar los cultivos a distancia casi en tiempo real desde un lugar distante de las parcelas mediante ordenador o dispositivo móvil. La plataforma ESRI es totalmente compatible con ¡Waspmote Plug & Sense! Plataforma de sensores what was an advantage for TeamDev. Thanks to FIWARE habilitadores genéricos y los Especificaciones NGSI we have been able to collect context information coming from sensors and using them for the user interface of the application and sending them to the Big Data storage for further analysis. TeamDev has developed specific software to integrate this data in a web interface for manage farming, that can be considered a Decision Support System (DSS). In addition to weather information, software offers other information about crops like productivity, presence of pathogens, treatments, and other specific details. All this information is processed to support farming management or to build predictive models about pest diffusion, treatments programming only when it is absolutely necessary and just in the right time. Más información:
Para más detalles técnicos sobre el hardware Waspmote, los sensores y cómo programar una aplicación Smart Agriculture: Guía técnica de la Junta Agropecuaria
