iFarm: Development of cloud-based system of cultivation management for precision agriculture
Precision agriculture is aimed at optimizing farming management and it requires records of agricultural work. Farmers conventionally write records on paper but it is difficult and tedious to check past agricultural-work data and control the cost of agricultural products. A system of cultivation management, iFarm, is proposed, which was developed to support efficient farming management. The system consists of smartphone applications, Web browsers and a cloud server. Farmers on farmland can easily refer to work plans, enter field data into the cloud system, and share them with head office in real time by using smartphones. Farmers at head office can analyze data in the cloud system with a Web browser and estimate farming costs and form work plans based on their analyses.
PRECISION FARMING APPROACHES TO SMALL-FARM AGRICULTRUE
Precision farming implies a management strategy to increase productivity and economic returns with a reduced impact on the environment. It is based on the application of information technology to a description of variability in the field, variable-rate operations and the decisionmaking system. There are three technology levels and three strategies in the development of precision farming. Precision farming practices can be used on small farms as well as big ones, and they play a core role in rural development programs which are integrated with industry. A real-time soil spectrophotometer was developed to describe soil variability in farmers' fields, to be used in precision farming.
Influence of Diluted Spent Wash of Sugar Industries Application on Yield of and Nutrient Uptake by Sugarcane and Changes in Soil Properties
A pot experiment was conducted to study the effect of irrigation with tube well water (S0) as well as with spent wash diluted for 25 (S25), 50 (S5O) and 100 (S100) times on yield of and nutrient uptake by sugarcane grown on Typic Chromustert. The results revealed that application of spent wash diluted at any level increased the sugarcane yield and nutrient uptake significantly over S0. Less diluted spent wash gave higher yield of biomass than the concentrated one. Though, there was tendency for slight increase in the soil salinity due to use of spent wash, yet the nutrient availability of P, K and S increased considerably. Further, there was indication of betterment in some physical conditions of soil.