In a previous article the milestone achieved with the was told financing obtained for the project Tethys Plus, designed for Improving the decision support system in precision agriculture. Since then, many things have been done numerous steps forward, with a specific focus on areas such as water resources management, L'crop yield optimization and the satellite image qualityThe progress achieved so far confirms the validity of an approach that aims at a more sustainable and efficient agricultural management through the integration of information and services within the same platform.

Field Notebook: A Centralized System for Farm Management

One of the first goals was the creation of a digital field notebook, designed for simplify business management. There design of theIT infrastructure, both for the back-end and for the front end, has been completed, while the backend development is nearing completion. The user interface is planned as a next step, for make data accountable and accessible in an intuitive wayIt is important to remember how filling out the field notebook is mandatory since 2001; its digital version is, therefore, even more necessary and urgent.

Improving the quality of satellite images

For optimize crop monitoring, we worked with the University of Cassino on'satellite image analysis, addressing the problem of clouds and shadows not detected from the automatic systems made available by ESA and NASA. The Manual data collection, L'analysis of scientific literature and the creating an image database to be used as a dataset to “train” an artificial intelligence system. The phase of AI algorithm design and related software is currently underway, with testing and integration planned in later phases.

Optimizing irrigation management for tree crops

A significant progress concerns the irrigation management of crops such as hazelnut and olive, to further improve the calculation processes, adapting existing water models to the specific characteristics of tree crops. I Past year tests have demonstrated that the use of the system Tethys can reduce water consumption up to 60% in particularly rainy years. Real-time experiments are currently underway on six agricultural companies of the cooperative Assofrutti from Caprarola (VT).