As we mentioned previously, this project is all about saving water! Of course there are many ways to do this, including recapture and re-use of irrigation water, but this approach does not achieve a couple of key benefits:
Firstly, capture and recycling systems are expensive, and many producers cannot use ponds since they don't have the land available or don't have the capability to deal with the disease management issues. Secondly, this approach is not very efficient -- expensive nutrients are lost through leaching if systems are over-irrigated and the quality of water may degrade over time with the build up of unwanted salts such as chloride.
So this puts our efforts in perspective -- this section describes how we are using wireless sensor networks to precisely monitor and control water applications in field, container-nursery and greenhouse systems, as well as in urban stormwater management (green roof) systems.
Our major goal is to limit the amount of water we use, to reduce nutrient leaching and runoff to a minimum. |
