Electronic crop (e-Crop), an IoT device for smart farming developed by Thiruvananthapuram based ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI) has been granted patent by Indian Patent Office. E-Crop is an electronic crop simulator that simulates crop growth in real-time based on weather, soil moisture and nutrient status; calculates nutrient and water requirements and generates agro-advisory for the crop at a daily time scale. This crop simulation model-based device gives periodical advices as SMS to the growers about water and nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) requirements. Dr. Santhosh Mithra, principal scientist is the inventor of the technology. e-Crop based smart farming (e-CBSF) has been successfully field-demonstrated for cassava, sweet potato, elephant foot yam and banana and growers could achieve higher yields with a saving on nutrients and water upto 50 percent due to more knowledge-intensive management of spatial and temporal variabilities of soil and plant properties. Reducing yield gap and improving nutrient use efficiency pay rich dividends to the farmers besides significant savings on costly inputs thereby reducing carbon footprint and global warming. Most important aspect of this device is its generic nature which enables us to adapt it to any field crop and efforts in that direction in collaboration with Kerala state department of agriculture and farmers welfare and many other state departments and ICAR institutes; IIT, Palakkad; Digital University, Kerala and Rubber Research Institute of India (RRII), Kottayam are in progress.

 

NS

(Release ID: 2014286)