How Automated Fertigation Can Help You Increase Productivity and Save the Environment

26 Jul How Automated Fertigation Can Help You Increase Productivity and Save the Environment

The world population is growing rapidly while the agricultural areas are getting smaller and resources are draining away. The agricultural sector is faced with the challenge of meeting the increasing food demand with limited resources. With this aim, agricultural practices are improving to grow more plants with fewer resources with the development of agricultural technologies.

Fertilization is one of the changing practices. In time, it was combined with irrigation and turned into “fertigation” to save labor and resources. Since then, for almost 20 years, fertigation became a preferred technique by most farmers when it comes to sustainability concerns. However, even it is a more sustainable technique than fertilization, lots of fertilizer still goes to waste with manual fertigation. Today, proceeding to automatic fertigation systems is the best way to prevent fertilizer waste and increase crop yield.

Plants require different nutrient volumes at different development stages. With manual fertigation, almost 50% of the fertilizer turns into waste because of early or late applications. Besides, regular measurement of EC, flow rate, and pH manually is time-consuming for farmers. So, implementing the optimum amount of fertilizer when it is needed is hard with manual systems.

In automated fertigation systems, EC, flow rate, and pH level of the water are constantly monitored by sensors to determine when fertigation is necessary and the exact amount of nutrients needed. This way plants grow healthier and faster in a more optimal environment. On top of the cultivation advantages, using a fertigation system benefits the environment, too. These systems prevent not only fertilizer waste but also plant diseases that occur by misapplication. Using fewer nutrients more efficiently means that fewer excess chemicals make their way into the groundwater.

In conclusion, automating your fertigation system saves water, fertilizer, time, and cost while increasing harvest yields and crop quality. In conclusion, by automating your fertigation system, you save from water, fertilizer, time, and cost while increasing crop yield and health. If you are interested in exploring automated fertigation and its advantages, you can check out Farmio’s Fertigation Module which can help you save up to 40% on fertilizer usage.