TEL AVIV, Israel, June 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Field tests of the FIGARO new precision agriculture Decision
Support System (DSS) carried out in six countries over a period of
three years indicate that the FIGARO platform can provide
significant water and energy savings while leading to increased
production and yield.
The EU-Funded FIGARO project preliminary results were obtained
while field testing the application of FIGARO components during the
development period. The current fourth season of the project is
demonstrating the integrated FIGARO Platform in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Denmark and Israel on tomatoes, maize, citrus and cotton
crops.
The tests show that the FIGARO platform offers excellent
decision support for managing irrigation and lowers uncertainty for
the farmer regarding water use and expected income. By analysing
accurate, real-time information about the soil, crop and weather
conditions, the system can provide optimum irrigation
scheduling.
"The implementation of the FIGARO DSS makes it possible to save
water at farm level. This is especially significant in the
Mediterranean sites where water savings and reductions of energy
consumption were 10-14 percent, with the most extreme water savings
recorded at 32%," said project coordinator Lior Doron, director of New Product Development
at Netafim, a world leader in drip and micro irrigation.
Over the next four months, FIGARO will host open field days and
training workshops to demonstrate the platform, offering farmers
and extension workers training as well as hands on experience with
the system. FIGARO partners will inform hundreds of end users of
the FIGARO Platform benefits and introduce them to the online
training programmes.
In June 2016 alone, FIGARO
partners are host to the following events:
- Portugal - Hidromod
hosted a seminar on the efficient use of water within the framework
of the National Agriculture Fair in Santarem on June 9
- Denmark - Aarhus
University hosted an open field day at the AU Research center
Foulum on June 21
- Spain - The University
of Valencia will host an open field day on June 30
About FIGARO
FIGARO is a Europe-wide
research project co-funded by the European Commission under the 7th
Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development of
the European Union.
For more information: http://www.figaro-irrigation.net/
Contact Person:
Bracha Ehrman
berhrman@agora-partners.com
+972-54-3041091
SOURCE FIGARO