Solar Panels Plus Farming? Agrivoltaics Explained

Farming under solar panels can create a greenhouse-like effect at the same time can produce energy to satisfy the demand of the farms at least.

Five drivers of Smart Farms

In recent years every other novel innovation is invented to make a system SMART. In agriculture also all the recent innovation is related to IoT which is the technique with which we are converting a conventional farm into a "Smart Farm".In case of smart firms there are five essential factors which is important for making a farm "SMART". The three factors are :

1)Farm management 

Farm management is the collective term for numerous management strategies and methods that are applied to maintain a farm thriving and rewarding. Even among farms, the procedures will vary relying on the form of farming business included and the size of the operation as a whole. (https://www.farmmanagement.pro/what-is-farm-management/)

2)Tasks management and planning:

There are a pair of elements in the handling of irrigation projects. One is the combined management function, which has much in common in any administration of any other kind of organization. It is apprehensive with the direction and coordination of the decision-making processes within the project area, and its purpose is to get all those involved in the process (farmers, staff, external government agencies) to work towards the accomplishment of the project's objectives. 

The remaining element is the management of specialized activities  like water distribution, maintenance, irrigation assistance services etc. which are particular to irrigation projects. These techniques have specific characteristics which require particular kinds of management skills and deign of operation.

Both supply and demand data can be compiled to estimate the probabilities of reconciliation in the objectives and choices of different interest groups - farmers, irrigation officials, agricultural officials, higher-level government agencies - to reach agreement on the forthcoming seasonal plan. The required adjustment in the interest of equatable water distribution, motivating staff (through rewards and sanctions) to resist pressures from farmers to mis-allocate water; also rewarding farmers for good watercourse operation and maintenance and punishing them for misappropriations. the development of easy information and control systems with clearly-defined criteria of performance and suitable objective indicators can be monitored and accordingly the process can be adjusted through :

i)Planning

ii)Execution

iii)Monitoring

3)Hydro-Climatic Factors: 

The availability and convenience in acquiring the required water resources mainly depends on climate and environment of the area. The unevenness in rainfall and temperature has obvious impact on stream flow level and time of hydrologic events. As for example the factors of environment and hydrology can be enlisted as below :

i)Rainfall

ii)Runoff, 

The rate and quantity of runoff are generally required for the design of drains, canals and other channels, prediction of water levels in streams and rivers and when storage is involved for irrigation, power generation, river transport etc. the approximation must include annual or longer-term variations, minimum yield and reliability.

Quality of runoff is increasingly a matter of concern due to chemical pollution  from health and environmental aspects; sedimentation, because of interference with drainage, land use, irrigation and power generation and degraded quality of runoff will degrade the quality of yield. A high pH runoff can make a field alkaline and the low pH will made it acidic.Both of which is unsuitable for a healthy yield of healthy and common crops.

That is why this factor need to predicted,simulated and optimized to develop a smart farm management plan. 

4)Erosion or Soil loss: 

Estimating soil loss is especially complicated because there are multiple variables on which soil erosion changes. As a result, models, whether empirical or process-based, are necessarily complex if they are to include the effects of all variables.The Universal Soil Loss Equation(USLE) will shortly be replaced by the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), which is comparable with the previous equation of soil loss estimation but with more advanced inputs and designed for operation on personal computers. 

In recent years, there has been a expansion of mathematical simulation models, based on the various physical processes involved in soil detachment, transportation and deposition. Most have unrealistic titles constructed to provide an unpronounceable acronym. The complexity of the erosion process, and the need for huge data banks to compile the many algorithms which are included in the models, mean that most of this type of model requires a powerful mainframe computer.

Amount of soil loss is another important factor which need to be recorded, estimated and optimized to create a smart farm management plan as more loss in soil will make the field less cultivable.

5)Sediment Transport

Sediment movement in streams and rivers takes two forms. Suspended sediment is the finer particles which are held in suspension by the eddy currents in the flowing stream, and which settle out only when the stream velocity decreases, such as when the stream gradient flattens, or the stream discharges into a pond or lake. Larger particles are rolled along the stream-bed and form the bed-load. When a farm takes the water from a stream or river for irrigation the quality of yield among many other factors also depend on the presence of suspended solids in irrigation water. Larger the concentration less preferred is the water for application as the suspended materials can choke the soli pores and reduce the aeration in the soil layers which is required for a healthy cultivation.That is why one of the major drivers of smart farm is to monitor and predict the sediment transport of the stream or river which is treated as the source of irrigation.

To make a farm smart one has to controle,predict and monitor the variations in these five factors which are the five pillars of intelligent farms.

Thanking you,

Founding Editor

Innovate with Sustainability

http://www.baipatra.ws 

Group : The Water,Energy and Informatics Groups

http://groupspaces.com/WaterResourceManagers/

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5 innovative ways to use IoT in Agriculture

Smart agriculture sensors, Drones, Livestock tracking, Remotely controlled Greenhouses and predictive framework for estimating production rate or farm management software(FMS) are the five major ways by which IoT is applied in agriculture and feedstock management to achieve the objective of maximum yield under minimum cost. 

This article will highlight five farm management software utilized by many farmers for smart monitoring and decision making regarding the crop to be cultivated, location for cultivation, approximate profitability and many other aspects of "smart farming".

Below is the list of well-known FMS which is capable to execute all the events required to make a farm "Smart" like : tasks management and planning, hydro-climatic and environment factors measurements and prediction, information delivery, Crop/Livestock, Inventory and account management, procurement processing, supplier management, location selection ability, monitors yield and profit from the yield, risk management and platform flexibility. In addition to these features the user will also consider the procuring cost, ease of use, customer support and number of features available before he start to use the software.:

1)Agrivi : 

Agrivi farm management software helps you strategy, monitor and analyze all lifestyle on your farm easily. Tillage, planting, crop protection etc. and all other activities are maintained with a few clicks. 

2)Conservis : 

Conservis is a comprehensive, easy-to-use farm management software suite for managing both row and permanent crops by tracking field activities, controlling inventories, understanding costs and analyzing yields.

3)Farmbrite : 

Farmbrite is an easy to use, all-in-one online natural and conventional Farm & Livestock Management Software.Farm Scheduling,Employee Task Management,Equipment Records,Asset Tracking & Logging,Co-op management,Sell your products online are some of the features of this software.

4)Granular : 

"Historical field performance guidance","Crop health data from Pioneer’s global field testing" and "Estimates for land value and expected yields" are the three main features of Granular which is more suitable for commercial farmers.

5)FarmERP

Farm Management Software is implementable for multiple types of users,location and cropping pattern or crops.It has separate modules for "Purchase, Inventory, Production, Post production, Contract farming, Biotech, HR, Accounts, Maps, Quality Control, and Farm analytics".

Thanking you,

Founding editor

Innovate for Sustainability

My Author Profile/My Kudos Profile

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Use Duck as Pesticide

Solution to pesticide problem

Using Ducks to function as pesticide.

See the video shared from World Economic Forum and found in Linkedin.

Click the link below : 

"Natural Solution to Natural Problem"

Idea for simultaneous conservation of water and energy in domestic household

A new idea for conservation of water and energy in domestic households. The water supplied to the domestic consumers were often wasted as the type of use for the water enforce them to do so. Most of the water is drawn out after use as waste water.That is why a continuous requirement is there for domestic water consumption. This new idea uses sub-tanks,sensors and water purification unit to not only save water but also to reduce the use of electric pump per day which amounts to a regular energy use of nearly 1kw. Below is the presentation :

Smart use of Water and Energy in domestic households from Mrinmoy Majumder

Research ideas on the selection of Energy Conservation Measures

The auditing of energy use depict the potential or magnitude of cost savings that can be achieved in a consumer if proper energy conservation measures are adopted.

But in the existing energy audit methodologies the selection mechanism of ENergy CONservation(ENCON) measures are still subjective and depends on the experience of the auditor and the demands from the engineers of the system being audited.

This subjectivity is not acceptable and can be mitigated if proper research is performed regarding this aspect.The following topics can become a potential idea of research to mitigate the problem.

Research Idea 1 : Potential of Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods in selection of Energy Conservation measures proposed by the auditors

The advent of the decision making methods like MCDMs has provided sufficient opportunity to imbibe objectivity in the decision making processes required in various problem solving activities.In the present case also the ENCONs can be selected based on the methods of multi criteria decision making(Analytical Hierarchy Process or Analytical Network Process). The implementation of these methods will maintain objectvity and will make the selection free of human bias.

Research Idea 2 : Identification of priority parameters for classification and prioritization of ENCONs proposed for a specific industrial or domestic or agricultural consumers by MCDM methods

The parameters with which the ENCONs can be prioritized is also a point of concern and here also the strength of MCDMs can be adopted.The end result from most of the compensatory MCDMs are the priority values or a fraction which gives the priority of selection or weight of importance of a parameter with respect to the objective of decision making.More the priority more will be the importance.If the correlated factors are ranked based on the priority values then the parameter with the highest weight of importance will be identified as the most important parameter with respect to the selection of ENCONs for reducing energy consumption in the audited system.As the MCDMs are free of human bias the identification will be objective and will represent the reality.

Baipatra: Domestic Energy Management Tool

Baipatra: Domestic Energy Management Tool: The Domestic Energy Management Tool can be utilized for selection of a plan of energy use by the domestic consumers implementing which wil...