How Farmers Can Embrace Smart Agriculture with EnviroMonitor

Weather is a key driver of nearly all the factors that make or break a crop’s success. That's why farmers and growers have (and always have had) a special relationship with the weather.

Davis Instruments supports growers across the U.S. and world in their shared mission of maintaining strong harvests to feed the world. As we've innovated the weather monitoring space over the last 35 years, we've found that agriculture is one of the areas in which our products provide major value, both for businesses and communities. That's one of the reasons we're so passionate about farming!

EnviroMonitor gives growers an easy-to-use, reliable, and affordable way to harness the power of data-powered smart farming. The system is a simple and cost-effective way for you to get critical field data continuously transmitted from your field to your smartphone.

Here's a step-by-step breakdown of how growers can install a basic EnviroMonitor system and easily expand the network of sensors as needed to provide key data from anywhere in the field:

Start with a weather station

To start, Davis provides what all successful farmers need: real-time, very local weather data. By installing a Vantage Pro2 GroWeather cabled or wireless weather station, you will have access to real-time data for temperature/humidity, rain, wind speed and direction, dewpoint, and evapotranspiration. The stations are robust, reliable, and easy to install.

Upload data to the WeatherLink Cloud

The next step toward smart farming would be to connect that weather station to an EnviroMonitor Gateway. EnviroMonitor Gateways upload data from the weather station to your page on WeatherLink.com, as well as our mobile apps, where your team can access it using a smartphone or computer.

Our original Gateway sends data via cellular connection. The new IP Gateway uses Wi-Fi or Ethernet to upload data to the WeatherLink Cloud. It is a perfect solution for growers who have Wi-Fi available, eliminating the need for cellular connectivity and the costs associated with it.

Expand the system with Nodes and sensors

From there, you can expand and customize your system to meet your precise needs by installing sensors in EnviroMonitor Nodes. Each Node can support four sensors, either Davis-branded or a variety of third-party sensors. These can be soil moisture sensors, flow meters, leaf wetness sensors, pressure sensors – whatever you need for your specific crop and conditions. (See the growing list of hundreds of supported sensors here.) This means you can have as many, or as few, sensors, as you need installed wherever you need them.

The Nodes use mesh network technology to redundantly and reliably get data back to the Gateway. The radio transmission range Node-to-Node and Node-to-Gateway is fantastic – up to 2,400 feet away, line-of-sight. (Transmission range is variable, with many factors affecting it. But even when Nodes are placed under an orchard canopy, they can transmit 500 feet). Add one of our external long-range antennas to increase the range up to 10,000 feet.

This gives you and your team members a powerful decision-making tool in the palm of your hand, anywhere, any time.

Use the Mobilize app for critical decision making

While WeatherLink.com and the WeatherLink mobile app provide a great deal of useful information for anyone growing anything, our ag-focused mobile app Mobilize is an additional tool for serious growers whose goals are always focused on increasing yield, decreasing cost, and protecting resources and the environment.

Mobilize is unique in its flexibility. It allows you to set up “field views” for specific crops or areas. If you raise strawberries in an open field, lettuce in a greenhouse, and almonds in an orchard, you need specific and different information for each of these.

Mobilize provides easy-to-see, useful reports for each view on irrigation, the risk of pest and disease damage, frost, growing degree days (GDD), and chilling units. You can set alerts so a glance at your phone is enough to inform you that attention is needed. You set thresholds specific to your crop and your location, so the reports provide powerful information when its needed to allow you to take action to prevent or mitigate damage. This huge amount of information is available to you and your team anywhere, anytime.

Mobilize is not just for growers with acres of fields. For anyone who is serious about growing, whether it’s a few rows of tomatoes and zucchinis, a greenhouse full of flowers, or an acre of Pinot Noir grapes – knowing what’s going on out there is the key to success.

Source:Davis Official Website