By John Hart
A new web-based app is in the works that will help farmers take action to protect crops, livestock and farm machinery when a storm or flooding event is forecasted.
Flooding can destroy crops, endanger livestock and damage expensive farm equipment, and soil salinity and saltwater intrusion can render farmland unusable. A new web-based app is in the works that will allow North Carolina farmers take action.
The project is a collaborative effort between NC State University, its N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative, East Carolina University and SAS. The new flood prediction tool should first be available to farmers in flood-prone Hyde and Washington counties later this year with the goal to eventually cover all 100 North Carolina counties.
Researchers involved in the pilot project say the new tool demonstrates the power of collaboration between universities, N.C. Cooperative Extension, farmers, and industry. The sensors measure water depth, soil moisture and salinity in real time, and the app sends a notice to farmers if flooding is imminent so they can take steps to either immediately harvest threatened crops, protect livestock or remove equipment from the field.
Brad Lewis, the program manager for the N.C. Ag Analytics Platform, is spearheading the collaborative research effort in cooperation with Ciprian “Chip” Popoviciu, director of the Center for IoT Engineering and Innovation at East Carolina University; Andrea Gibbs, an agricultural agent with N.C. Cooperative Extension’s Hyde County Center; and Hyde County farmer Dawson Pugh.
Source : ncsu.edu