Crop-Hydration Sensor For Farmers

Y Combinator-backed Tule Aims to Simplify the Process with a Device that Senses Plant Moisture from a Large Area of Land

Thanks to several technological improvements over the last century, life for farmers is much easier than it used to be. But managing water consumption and distribution on farms is still a fairly manual process. Farmers have traditionally hired farm hands to drive through acres of fields and manually check the health of their crops and wetness of the soil.

Y Combinator-backed Tule (pronounced too-lee) aims to simplify the process with a device that senses plant moisture from a large area of land. It works by measuring something called evapotranspiration, or the amount of moisture released by plants into the air.The sensors collect data from the evapotranspiration and then send it to the site's servers.

Water management is becoming increasingly important to farmers. The majority of our water resources in the United States go to farm crops, with more than 90 percent of that consumption taking place in the Western states,according to the USDA.

In places like California, the need for water management is especially pressing.Almonds, avocados, strawberries and grapes all tend to need extra attention when it comes to the right balance of water in the soil, and the state is in the midst of a drought.

As a result, every drop of water counts for the farmers and their fields here. Too much or too little water can ruin thousands of acres of cropland, cause a food shortage, drive up prices for the consumer and devastate a farmer's yearly income.

Drones have provided some modern measures to give the farmer a picture of what's happening. But, according to atmospheric scientist and Tule co-founder Tom Shapland, theyonlyshow the farmer what they can already see.

"Theyshow [the farmer] images of their crop. They already know that, but it doesn't help them measure what's going on with the soil," says Shapland.

Even soil moisture sensors likeEdynonly measure a few cubic inches or a specific plant.

Shapland focused on technological applications to agriculture while earning his PhDat UC Davis. Heand co-founder Jeff LaBarge builtTule to provide what Shapland says isa more accurate and affordable solutionfor healthy cropirrigation to farmers.

The technology behind Tule has existed since the late 1800s but it was expensive to make and didn't reach far enough for real-world applications. Shapland says systems made before his sensors came alongwould have cost a farmer about half a million dollarsand were stuckinacademia for more than a century for that reason.

TheTulesensors canbe installed in under 30 minutes, measure up to 10 acres of cropland at a timeand cost$1,500 per sensor.

An app is coming soon for farmers who want to check their crops on mobile. For now, farmers can log in on the Tule website to check out how their crops are doing in real-time.Users see the data from their crops, as well as a projected weather forecast for the week ahead. This helps themmanually adjust water accordingly.

LaBarge and Shapland imagine someday someone might create technologythat will automatically direct water resources to the right crops at the right time so the farmer doesn't have to, but their focus is solelyon water detection.

The sensors couldalso possibly help prepare farmers for the future of global food production. There will be an estimated 9billion people in the world in the next 35 years. AFood and Agriculture Organization of the United Nationsforecast predicts farmers will need toincrease production by 60 percentto meet demands. Shapland says hissensors could increase yield by 30percentif farmers get the irrigation just right.

Source: Tech Crunch

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• Agriculture
• Technology
• Sensor Systems