XFarm. Ground sensors

Do you know the importance of the sensors? A few months ago, Nicola Franco (XFarm's director for the Iberian peninsula) suggested that we could use and evaluate the XFarm agronomic management platform. This type of management tools has evolved a lot in recent years and there are many companies that offer similar platforms, although each one has its own distinguishing characteristics that differentiates it from the rest. In this case, XFarm is an Italian platform that, as we will show you below, encompasses many options for an holistic agronomic management of a farm. We say holistic because there are several premium modules that can be used and that cover all management needs, such as the financial management module, satellite photos, weather data, irrigation information, alerts and up to 15 different modules. 

This time we will focus on the ground sensor module, which as you can see in our photos, were installed in several fields and are now reporting detailed information on weather activity (up to 100 sensors can be installed for the same network). In particular, we are using: 

• XSense weather station.  
• It is a completely autonomous Davis weather station as it is powered by a solar panel and has a SIM card to send data to the XFarm platform.  
• It also has a camera that takes a photo every day so that we can see the crop as if we were in the field.  
• The station reports information on rainfall, wind speed, temperature, humidity, etc. 
• XNode soil moisture sensor.  
• These sensors are installed at two levels of depth in the soil, depending on the needs of the crop, in order to have shallow and deeper moisture readings. In this way, we have a detailed overview of the water status of our crop.  
• Additionally, these sensors are also completely autonomous as they have a solar panel and can have a SIM card or be connected to the weather station by radio (maximum 10km distance).  
• As you can see in the photos, the information they report is very useful for "smart irrigation". 
• XNode pest sensor. 
• It consists of a cage where insects can be captured.  
• In the cage there is a camera that sends us a photo every day so we can see if there is any insect in the trap.  
• It has the capability to tell us which insect we have in the trap and therefore in our crop (XFarm has a list of 20 different insects). 

We will surely publish more articles about the XFarm platform because it is very interesting for us. So far, with the data we already have, the platform is helping us a lot in making agronomic decisions that were previously extremely difficult to make. 

Versión en español.

Sowing sunflowers days

Sunflower has always been a significant crop in the area of Cuenca, but this season, if possible, it will be even more important. The shortage of production mainly because of the situation in Ukraine (one of the main producers of sunflower in the world) has meant an increase in price and a high demand by companies and even governments, then many farmers decided to plant this crop, besides it is also a very good option for crop rotation. We hadn’t sown sunflowers in the last few years and this year we have also sown sunflowers again. 

We spent a nice morning with the brothers David and Oscar on their fields (Tribaldos - Cuenca) watching how they were preparing the soil and sowing sunflowers. As you can see in the video and our pictures, the first thing to do is to prepare the soil and then sow. Sunflower is a crop that needs a soil with deep vertical work, as it is a summer crop, so the roots will have to go deep enough to look for humidity. In the video they are using the cultivator to do the last superficial work to remove the weeds. After sowing, when the sunflower has emerged, weeds can be removed mechanically, furrowing the crop and also by phytosanitary treatment... this will be discussed in the future. 

As far as sowing tasks are concerned, David tells us that this year they are going to sow around 300 hectares of sunflower because it is a very attractive crop due to the price it is fetching at the moment. Last two years, it was around 250€/ha and now it is around 800€/ha (the production they usually have is 1.000kg/ha). The seed they use is of the Lidea brand and the Aromatic variety (we have sown Lidea Transol), which is a high oleic sunflower that can be treated with phytosanitary treatments to control weeds. The seed is in sacks of 150,000 seeds which is usually used for about 3.5 hectares. David tells us that he is planting about 40,000 plants per hectare and that he is planting at a distance of 90cm between rows (in our opinion this is too much). With his new Valtra T145 and the Kverneland OPTIMA NT seed drill he can sow around 4ha/hour at a working speed of 8.7km/h. 

Versión en español.