Chile: Development of a new low-cost tool for water management

24/01/2017

During the last decades, the climate in Chile has been changing. The desert that before was only in the north of the territory has been advancing towards the south, and with it the shortage of water has been aggravated.

The drought in areas where water was abundant before, has led farmers to see the use of water resources as a fundamental element for the management of their crops and plantations.

The management of water use has become an essential tool for all producers, knowing when and how much water to apply, are some of the questions that are asked when deciding the execution of each irrigation.

Those who make these fundamental decisions for the future development of production, often do not have the minimum capacities for such effects. Bad or no irrigation execution, excess water, are some of the most common problems that producers have every year.

On the other hand, the new technologies that have been introduced to agriculture, has brought great benefits to those who have the option of having them. But the high costs of programmers, sensors or irrigation management systems mean that a large part of farmers can not access this type of technology.

It is for this reason, that Riego Palo Alto, a company dedicated to the development of irrigation projects, together with GITZ and with financing from SERCOTEC, have developed a tool with the objective of helping to better manage irrigation using technologies that are already Common use in our country and the world.

An intelligent irrigation programmer, which can be operated from anywhere on the planet with a cell phone or computer, which only requires an Internet connection, can create irrigation programs, define the irrigation times for each zone, amount of water that is you want to apply or irrigate according to soil moisture, are some of the tools that this programmer has, developed and assembled 100% in Chile.

Unlike other programmers that are in our market, this equipment can be an 70% more economical than the rest, its use is very friendly for the common user, as well as the applications necessary for the operation of the programmer, from the cell phone and the web platform, were developed in Spanish.

The smart irrigation programmer developed by Irrigation Palo Alto, allows you to receive data sent from a cell phone or computer, and so you can activate an irrigation at any time of day and from anywhere in the world, to know if irrigation is actually being applied or how much water is actually used in each program or period of time, define irrigation times of up to 24 hours, departures per minute, sending information obtained by sensors for further analysis, will help obtain the highest yields of crops in the case of producers, and a considerable water saving that will result in a low water bill.

This programmer is available in two options of 8 and 16 irrigation stations (it can be extended in specific projects), as well as inputs for flow or humidity sensors.

Source: Fruit Portal