Background
The continuously increasing demand for food for ever increasing population, becomes the biggest challenge worldwide due to climate change that affects land productivity, crop performance and yield. Given the increasing demands for water and food under global warming, one of the great challenges facing the agricultural sector is how to increase food production by using less water for irrigation. Another issue is the homogeneous application of not only water but N, P and K over the entire field area adopted by the majority of farmers. This results in over- and under-applications over different parts of a field, leading to poor yield and management of farming input resources, and negative environmental consequences, e.g., N and P leaching, or water scarcity. The solution would be to adopt variable rate fertigation (VRFI) at field scale, by applying the right rate on fertilisers and water for irrigation at the right time, and place using advanced sensing, modelling and control technology.
News
2023 Annual Meeting
Between 22. and 23. June 2023 the annual project meeting was held. Hosts where the project partners of the Rostock University. Each partner presented their progress, results and future actions regarding the project. Discussion points where: the inclusion of machine learning for irrigation forecast, the details of developing the hose reel irrigation machine and measuring the ecological impact of applied variable rate fertigation. On the second day the partner farm KSG Agrargesellschaft mbH Kassow was visited, followed by an excursion to the nearby test field.
2022 Annual Meeting
Between 5. and 7. September the annual project meeting was held in Bursa. Hosts where the turkish partners at the Bursa Uludag University. Each partner presented their progress, results and future actions regarding the project. Especially the design of the Hose Reel Irrigation Machine was productively discussed. On the second day the Sezer plant was visited, followed by an excursion to the nearby test field. Orhan, the turkish farmer managing the field was also present and gave practical insights into his cultivation practices and real world requirements for the future VRF system.
2021 Kick-off meeting
On March 30, the kick-off meeting for the research project “A Data-Driven Platform for Site-Specific Fertigation” took place online. The project, led by the Belgian partner Abdul Mouazen, University of Ghent, is about combined fertilization and irrigation. Together with other partners from Switzerland, Greece and Turkey, an irrigation system is to be coupled with a fertilizer system in order to apply both fertilizer and water on a site-specific basis. This is to be tested on three farms, including in Kassow near Rostock. The Professorship for Geodesy and Geoinformatics from University Rostock is responsible for researching, implementing and operating the data-driven infrastructure as a central component. The project has a term of three years.