A Zimbabwe irrigation manufacturing company, Centre Pivot Irrigation (CPI) has been appointed the local agent for leading Southern Africa Irricheck through the provision of hardware sales, installations, and after-sale services.
Other services to be provided by Irricheck in Zimbabwe through CPI, include software and irrigation scheduling advisory needs directly through a farmer’s personal computer, Android or iOS phone.
“Under the guidance from Irricheck, CPI has been running and scheduling growers and the farmers here (Zimbabwe) are beginning to see the benefits,” Brett Hattingh, the CPI scheduler said.
Hattingh consults on all irrigated crops, and with the support of local agronomists, soil scientists, is able to provide quality advice and recommendations suited for different situations.
“Water for agricultural irrigation is under increasing pressure as farmers are required to produce more for less. This can be achieved using the Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and software, but as we enter the data-driven 4th Industrial Revolution, farmers are increasingly bombarded with technologies that show heaps of data, but which does not translate into any meaningful actions.”
Through the use of IoT systems; topography, drainage, farm surroundings and most importantly soils are recorded and added into the system.
“Once installed, the probe will send information every hour from the sensors located every 10cm down the probe. This gives a nice cross-sectional view of what’s going on in the profile.
“These sensors record moisture and temperature readings which will be portrayed as graphs. To the farmer, this looks complex, and a lot of time and effort can be used analysing this data.”
Added Hattingh; “Sometimes information may be misinterpreted, and incorrect decisions may be made. (However,) To an expert whose primary job is to interpret and analyse these graphs, it is gold.”
Several models are used to assist with the interpretation of the data received by the probe, and these are adjusted by Hattingh according to the field as soils and weather can vary.
Soil textures are also added, and this gives the farmer and the scheduler, the water available at different depths throughout the profile.
“All this information is calculated, and it tells you when and how much to irrigate. The platform interprets data from multiple sensors and sources every hour to provide you with live seven-day forecasted irrigation in mm, or hours,” Hattingh said.
CPI’s initial focus in Zimbabwe was on orchards of both deciduous and evergreen trees. However, this year, most of CPI’s market has been winter wheat, tomatoes, potatoes, peas, bananas, tobacco and maize.
“Customers seem very happy and have not hesitated to expand with the scheduling tools. Scheduling is very intricate, and a lot is considered. If we can utilise tools like this, we can really benefit in a number of ways.
“Applying the right amount of water at the right time is paramount to maximum return on investment. Irrigating too much has a range of negative consequences. It’s a waste of water, which is generally in short supply on most farms,” Hattingh explained.
“Over-irrigating can often result in pushing fertilisers past the root zone without a farmer knowing. A probe can show you how far an irrigation cycle penetrates the profile. With regards to tobacco, at the end of the season a grower will want to flush his nitrogen to slow down vegetative growth. The amount of water needed to leach past the root zone can be calculated.”
