Tag: precision farming

IIT Kharagpur Innovates DGPS-Enabled Soil Mapping Tech for Effective Fertilization

Geospatial mapping is a buzzword today with the Govt. of India liberalizing the sector. There is another side of mapping that could transform the food security program of India; soil maps which could be accessed using differential GPS, developed by researchers at IIT Kharagpur for a variable rate of fertilization application in farmlands. The novel technology is aimed towards efficient use of Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potash for automated soil nutrition management by bypassing both manual labour based operations or sensor-based fertilization technologies which are still under development.

Spatial variations in soil type and mineral content in large agricultural tracts are a common phenomenon that leads to a dynamic need for resources such as fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and even water. Farmers have been collecting information on these variations through soil tests by local bodies or installing sensors to collect the data in real-time. However, the proximity of the applicator vehicle to the sensor hinders real-time sensor-based data processing and fertilizer application. 

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur along with his former research scholar Dr. Sneha Jha from the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering explored an alternate method of creating a soil nutrition map that can be accessed in real-time through differential global positioning system for variable rate application of NPK. 

Explaining the process Prof. Tewari said, “We divided one hectare of land into 36 grids with the nutritional requirement of each grid fed in the soil map. The fertilizer applicator vehicle, fitted with a DGPS module and GUI enabled Microprocessor cum Microcontroller, can access this map and compute in real-time the variable rates in the fertilizer application function.”

The soil map can be replicated for agricultural plots based on soil tests which can be performed at district administration levels or by private labs. This data when fed into the DGPS module will be accessible to farms using the GUI installed-applicator. 

“The system can detect the field grids in real-time with a length-wise accuracy of 16 cm towards the east and breadth-wise accuracy of 20 cm towards the north. It can manage the automated application from 5 to 400 Kg per hectare. Application of such desired amount of NPK precisely at a specific location will enhance crop production and avoid environmental degradation,” said Prof. Tewari. 

 

“This technology would be able to reduce 30% of fertilizers used in manual methods thus ensuring substantial savings in resource applications,” he further added remarking on how this technology can bring the cost of fertilizer application by improving the efficiency of the job and reducing manual labour.

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IIT Kharagpur to Incubate Agri-Food Startups to support Food Security

Shiksha Mantri to Flag-off Agri-Food Techathon at IIT Kharagpur to promote Agri and Food Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship

IIT Kharagpur in association with NABARD is organizing the first of its kind Agri-Food Techathon (AFT 2021), to promote the participation of India’s youth in innovation and entrepreneurship in different domains of the Agri-Food sector. AFT-2021 will be inaugurated by Hon’ble Shiksha Mantri Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on January 25, 2021. The foundation of the Agri-Business Incubation Centre will also be laid at the inaugural event, which will carry out the mandate to incubate innovative ideas in agriculture and food technology domain for creating Agri-preneures. 

Agriculture is the largest employment vertical with a GDP share of 14%. Over the years, India has witnessed a substantial increase in yields, crop diversity due to mechanization and knowledge dissemination programmes. However, the steeping consumption due to population explosion has been a constant challenge demanding rapid progress in the agricultural sector. 

Talking about the initiative Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur opined, “While India is moving at an accelerated pace towards automation and digitization, there is a crucial need to complement it with automation in the rural livelihood and farm sector and warrant uniform progress. To achieve this goal we are reaching out to the talented youth of this country through the Agri-Food Techathon. This platform will enable them to exhibit and depict their creativity, problem-solving and prototyping-skills in Agriculture and Food Technology thus leading to indigenous product development, employment generation and fulfilment of our promise to Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

The national-level online technical fest spanned over January – March 2021, will have participation from over 750 university/college students, entrepreneurs and rural youths from across the country in the age range of 20-25 years with diverse academic background. Apart from workshops, mentorship and guest talks, AFT-2021 will host a competitive B-plan submission for the participants.

Business and technology experts in areas covering farm mechanization, AIML, IoT in agriculture, precision farming, greenhouse farming, organic farming, agricultural biotechnology, soil technology and testing, food processing, packaging and storage, food supply chain management.

Renowned professional experts from countries premier institutions like IIT Kharagpur, IARI New Delhi, CIAE Bhopal and Founders / CEOs of different successful agri-food tech startups like Sickle Foundation, Sfarms India, Fasal, Nutrigreen, Organic Farming, Cropin, B2V, Keyhti, Khadyam, Crofarm, WAycool, Villa Mart, etc. are taking part in the Sensitization Workshop of the AFT-2021.

More than 30 teams with high potential will be selected for formal association with ABIC, IIT Kharagpur. They will be offered assistance in the form of Technology and Business Development Mentorship, R&D support, Laboratory / Workshop / Pilot Plant access and Funding Opportunities through potential Investors / Accelerators. Business and technology experts from key domains of Agriculture and Food Technology will be involved as panellists and mentors. 

The event is being organized by Agricultural & Food Engineering Department, Centre for Rural Development & Innovative Sustainable Technologies and Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship in association with NABARD. 

Prof. H N Mishra, Professor-in-Charge of the Agri Business Incubation Centre (ABIC), remarked, “At our Centre, we will facilitate the incubated startups to develop low-cost technologies and transfer them for sustainable development of rural communities. We shall further conduct hands-on training, workshops, and seminars for capacity building of farmers and unemployed rural youth.” 

Special emphasis will be given through action-oriented research to promote climate-resilient agriculture in vulnerable districts, agricultural value chains, promote farmers’ collectives, value addition, market-linkage, and risk management; also offering expert advisory services, policy advocacy including building up of human capital in rural areas. 

For more information on AFT 2021 and ABIC, please visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/agri-food-techathon-aft-2021/

Promotion of Micro-irrigation installation for improving horticultural production

By Prof. K N Tiwari, Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, IIT Kharagpur

Adoption of micro-irrigation system in the country rose from a meagre 1500 hectares in the 1980s to nearly 86.21 lakh hectares in 2016, yet the technology adoption is confined only to 18 States and the area is negligibly small in most of the eastern and North Eastern States. Presently, this technology is in vogue only for very few crops. Among the horticultural crops, drip technology is adopted mostly, in fruits with a penetration of 34%. This is followed by vegetables (14%), plantation crops (13%), coconut (12%). citrus (10%), spices (8%), and all other crops individually contribute to less than 10 percent of the area under the drip. There is a need to expand the technology to many other fruits, vegetables, and cash crops.

Precision Farming Development Centre (PFDC), IIT Kharagpur, has carried out in-depth laboratory and field research experiments, hardware, and software developments on various aspects of micro-irrigation technology. PFDC conducted several experimental trials on water and nutrients requirements of vegetable crops (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, okra, lettuce, capsicum, tomato, baby corn, brinjal, onion, and cucumber), fruit crops (banana, sapota, guava, litchi, mango, pineapple, cashew, and strawberry), and flower crops (Dutch rose, chrysanthemum, and gerbera) under a micro-irrigation system. The Centre also developed the package of practices (PoP) for 23 crops. PFDC developed the automated micro-irrigation system and soil moisture sensing system. PFDC also conducted crop experiments to standardize crop water and fertilizer requirement of flower and vegetable crops grown inside the greenhouse. Standardized technologies were demonstrated in PFDC experimental farms as well as in farmers’ fields.

Fig. 1. Experimental crops under micro-irrigation system at PFDC experimental farm, Agricultural & Food Engg Dept. IIT Kharagpur

While considering the fact that the large numbers of farmers of West Bengal are small landholding farmers (< 2 acres), the PFDC developed a small-scale micro-irrigation system to promote the system. Overhead tank drip irrigation system designed and the pedal-operated pump and nano solar pump were introduced in place of the power-operated pump to lift the water to the overhead tank. Adjustable flow emitters were developed to control and vary the drip discharge according to the requirement of plants. Dual components drippers and single component drippers were designed and developed, which reduces the requirement of plastic material and also the cost of emitters. Sweat irrigation technology was also developed to reduce the cost of drip laterals and emitters.

The experimental findings and developed technologies were transferred to farmers’ and other stakeholders through workshops, short term training courses. More than eleven thousand farmers, Officials from the Govt and Non-Government organizations were trained through two hundred sixty-six training programs, workshops and mass awareness camps. The training programs were conducted to disseminate knowledge about the benefits of micro-irrigation techniques. Farmers were also trained on the micro-irrigation components, design, layout, installation, maintenance and repair of micro-irrigation system and components, etc.

Fig 2. Transfer of developed technologies among various stakeholders (Seeing is believing)

PFDC demonstrated and provided technical support to farmers’ fields of different districts of West Bengal to promote MI technology. Including demonstration, Field visits and surveys were conducted at regular intervals to know the issues on the implementation of MI technologies on horticultural crops in different parts of West Bengal.

Fig 3. Demonstration of micro-irrigation system installed in farmers’ field

Automating sugarcane plantation to boost profitability

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed devices for automating a range of functions for planting sugarcane buds, fitted with an autonomous fungicide application with the aim to reduce labour hours and raw material wastage. 

Sugarcane is a global industrial crop popular for the production of sugar, bioenergy, paper, ethanol, electricity etc. The economic importance of the crop in India is paramount with the country registering 17% of global sugarcane production, second only to Brazil. But each year the farmers are losing excess cane stalk as seed material due to conventional cultivation practice which is also labour and time-intensive thus increasing the overall production cost. 

A view of a bud separated from sugarcane stalk

The sugarcane planting system, developed by the research team at the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering, consists of a machine vision-based bud cutting machine and a tractor operated bud planting machine. 

Bud cutting machine

The bud cutting machine involves three sub-mechanisms – a sugarcane feeding system, a machine vision system for the identification of sugarcane buds and a mechatronic system for cutting the identified bud.

  • The first sub-mechanism feeds the whole-cane stalk towards the imaging and cutting zone.
  • The second sub-mechanism identifies the bud location on a cane stalk by means of machine vision, which directs the third sub-mechanism to regulate the decision for cutting action.
  • The third sub-mechanism is the assembly of mechatronically integrated cutting tools that removes the bud portion from the whole cane.

The tractor operated bud planting machine is also developed for the planting of the prepared sugarcane buds and application of fungicide. It consists of a two-row bud planting mechanism and a sensor-based autonomous fungicide application system. 

The functions of the machine include opening a wide soil furrow using furrow openers, picking the buds from the seedbox with the help of a metering mechanism, placing the buds into the soil through a seed delivery tube, sensing of the placed bud and automatic application of fungicide on the bud. 

The mechanism would allow reusing 80% of the internodes generated during the process for sugar production and other mainstream purposes.

Output of the bud cutting system

“This technology holds a significant potential at industrial and local levels especially in countries like India that are among the major producers but lacks automation for input developments. This system may further assist in reducing the net planting material requirements against the conventional methods adopted for sugarcane plantation. We can save the excess amount of cane stalk, trashed in the conventional plantation thus reducing the sizable loss of raw material,” said Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director of the Institute and Professor of farm machinery, who led this product innovation.

The throughput capacity of the developed system with a single cutting unit can range up to 1418 buds/hour.

“Through this automation technology, we can generate seeding material for a hectare of land in 10-15 hours which otherwise takes about 60-90 hours when relying on conventional (manual) methods. This could not only turn out to be a cost-saving opportunity for the farming community but a capacitive solution for sugarcane cultivation through bud chips as well,” added Prof. Tewari.

Conceptual diagram of the autonomous fungicide spraying system

Another area that is addressed through this technology is the autonomous fungicide application which is integrated into the tractor operated planting machine. To protect the seed from soil-borne disease, a sensor-based spraying system has been designed and integrated with the planter to apply a predefined amount of fungicide over the bud and the surrounding soil. 

Dr. Brajesh Nare who carried out his doctoral work at IIT Kharagpur and currently working as a scientist at ICAR-CPRI Shimla remarked, “The autonomous system was developed for spot application of liquid fungicide at the time of placement of the bud in the furrow. The function of this system is to detect the buds just before their placement in soil and spray a prescribed amount of chemical on the bud and around the soil. A significant chemical saving was found to be 48% with the sensor-based application at the selected speeds.”

The machines have been tested on a varied range of sugarcane diameters and two popular cultivars were chosen to evaluate the system performances. The research team has filed for a patent in addition to publications in international journals. The other members in the team include Abhilash Chandel, Satry Prakash, Chethan CR, Prateek Shrivastava and Chanchal Gupta.

“Such systems can be majorly employed across the major sugarcane producing countries as complementary and economic tools. Moreover, such units may be multiplied and incorporated industrially to produce sugarcane planting material as per the size of cultivation,” opined Dr. Nare.

Research Contact: Prof. V K Tewari, Professor, Dept. of Agricultural & Food Engineering, E: vktfeb@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in; Dr. Vrajesh Nare, Scientist, ICAR-CPRI, E: brajeshagengg@gmail.com

Media Contact: Shreyoshi Ghosh, E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

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Ammonia Hotspot Trends in India – First-time observations from India

Indo-Gangetic Plain an atmospheric ammonia hotspot but India’s overall trends look promising

Agro fertilizers containing high levels of ammonia have long been designated as a hazardous material for human health. For the first time in India, the seasonal and inter-annual variability of atmospheric ammonia emitted by the agricultural sector has been analyzed by researchers from IIT Kharagpur in collaboration with IITM Pune and European researchers. And the results are in agreement with the long-held apprehension of global environmentalists – the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) is indeed the global hot-spot of atmospheric ammonia (NH3) due to intense agricultural activities and fertilizer production there. 

Using IASI satellite measurements to analyze the seasonal and inter-annual variability of atmospheric NH3 over India for the period 2008–2016, the researchers observed atmospheric ammonia growing rapidly at a rate of 0.08% annually during the summer-monsoon (Kharif crop period) season from June to August. The study further confirmed a direct correlation between NH3 emissions and fire counts and reports a high volume of atmospheric ammonia in the same season. They delineated the data for global industrial, agricultural, and natural NH3 hotspots.

“The satellite data we collected for agricultural emissions show a positive correlation of atmospheric ammonia with total fertilizer consumption and temperature since high temperature favours volatilization and is negatively correlated with total precipitation as wet deposition helps removal of atmospheric ammonia,” explained Prof. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath from IIT Kharagpur’s Centre for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere. 

Atmospheric ammonia is typically generated due to agricultural activities including the use of nitrogenous fertilizers, manure management, soil and water management practices and animal husbandry. It is very dynamic as it is constantly exchanged between the atmosphere and biosphere. In India, there has been a lack of detailed information about atmospheric ammonia, which is a significant contributor to atmospheric pollution and deterioration of air quality. This is particularly important for IGP as there are many cities including New Delhi.

This study titled “Record high levels of atmospheric ammonia over India: Spatial and temporal analyses” and published recently in Elsevier journal “Science of the Total Environment”, is pioneering research from India in measuring the dynamics of atmospheric ammonia over the region and validated the data supporting India’s commitment to reduce atmospheric pollution and development of global pollution control initiatives. Apart from IGP, data from across the country show some regional hotspots in northwest and southeast India. The study also mentions that there are positive trends in atmospheric NH3 over the agricultural areas of the United States, China and Europe, about 1.8–2.61% annually, depending on regions. However, the general trend in atmospheric ammonia over India is negative in most seasons.

“Observing the overall trend, we can therefore assert to being sincere to our pledge at the Paris Climate Summit towards reducing atmospheric emissions through initiatives under the National Clean Air Programme though we have to be relentless in our efforts to reduce the emissions at the Indo Gangetic Plain, which would otherwise have detrimental effects on the human health, ecosystems and climate,” added Prof. Kuttippurath.

Deliberating on possible remedies co-authors Mr. Ajay Singh and Prof. Nirupama Mallick from the IIT Kharagpur’s Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering emphasized the wider adoption of precision farming along with seasonal restrictions on the use of fertilizers.

“Agriculture, in its conventional form, contributes significantly to the atmospheric emission of gaseous ammonia that plays a key role in the deterioration of air quality over the whole of India by actively contributing to the formation of secondary aerosols. This demands regulations on the amount of fertilizer application in cropping seasons in arable lands, in place of conventional blanket recommendation practices, along with viable strategies to curb farm emissions” remarked Prof. Nirupama Mallick from the Dept. of AGFE.

Citation: J. Kuttippurath, A. Singh, S.P. Dash, N. Mallick, C. Clerbaux, M. Van Damme, L. Clarisse, P.-F. Coheur, S. Raj, K. Abbhishek, H. Varikoden, Record high levels of atmospheric ammonia over India: Spatial and temporal analyses, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 740, 2020, 139986, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139986.

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Contact:

Research: Dr. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath, Assistant Professor, Centre for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere and Land Sciences (CORAL), IIT Kharagpur, Email: jayan@coral.iitkgp.ac.in

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, Executive Officer (Media & Communication), IIT Kharagpur, Email: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

For news and information please visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in

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