Growers tie sensors to internet by using low-frequency radio
Researchers use LoRaWAN at Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center (IAREC) near Prosser to monitor irrigation flow meters, sap flow meters, dendrometers and more.
And the data flows both ways. In the Smart Vineyard at the Roza research farm, grape cluster temperature sensors send data via LoRaWAN to a control center, which — if conditions are right — sends a command back to the node to activate automated cooling misters. Then, leaf wetness and soil moisture sensors send more data to the control center, which turns off the misters once a certain threshold is reached.
AgWeatherNet, WSU’s weather station network, also uses LoRaWAN at the WSU Smart Orchard near Mattawa. There, the nodes connect to a gateway that communicates to the internet through the farm’s Wi-Fi.
Srikanth Gorthi, a doctoral student working with AgWeatherNet in Prosser, has placed LoRaWAN-equipped weather sensors in nearby commercial cherry orchards that send data to a gateway hooked to an antenna outside the research station.
