Technology making the rounds in drought stricken California farmland has the ability to measure soil moisture content every few seconds and transmit data back to a central location over a wireless network. A grid of such sensors can provide enough information to control your irrigation system and give plants exactly the right amount of water whenever it is needed. Sounds like we're on the road to wiring thousands of acres or trees and vines.

"Hold the phone" - not so fast. While chatting to a customer a few months ago we were looking at how we might make better use of weather station (and by extension - sensor networks) data in combination with irrigation management decisions. It seems that having all this data about what the temperature, humidity, etc. was a few minutes ago does not give us enough decision support content to schedule irrigation activities a few days down the track - the key ingredients are "how stressed are our plants right now", "how much water do we have in the tank" and "how hot is it going to be tomorrow". Sounds like our technology footprint is going to have to touch large parts of our existing infrastructure and contain some modeling capability that gives us a stress prediction for a few days ahead. Since I am pretty ignorant about the combination of technology and irrigation infrastructure I threw out a question about why a team of irrigation system foremen were so hands on and there was an absence of automated irrigation system control - turns out that when there is a hole in the drip tape it is helpful to have someone out in the field so that the leak can be spotted and repaired. 

I was talking recently to a colleague in the Barossa Valley who mentioned having just returned from a training program for yet another farm management certification program. It seems that every few months a new method of assessing efficiency or environmental impact is introduced. Organic, sustainable, biodynamic, river friendly, salmon safe, carbon neutral, you name it and it seems there is a program for it. That’s not to mention all the state and national certification programs.  No doubt, this leaves the grower with a potentially substantial administrative overhead and a confusing array of choices.