For the 2022 season, Ceres Imaging's aerial imagery and analytics tools will integrate with other precision irrigation tools, including moisture probes and weather stations.
The company says the ability to see multiple sources of irrigation data in one place makes it easier for busy growers to identify issues, improve uniformity and uncover opportunities to protect farm profits.
“Especially when water’s scarce, optimizing irrigation depends on seeing the full picture of variability across your operation. But while you might want to have eyes on every plant in the field, the fact is, there’s never enough time in the day,” says Ashwin Madgavkar, Ceres Imaging CEO and founder. “This integration helps ensure growers get the full picture of their irrigation performance so they can optimize water use and hit their management goals.”
Ceres Imaging will offer water demand maps for orchards and vineyards in the 2022 season. Built from scientific-grade aerial imagery and crop-specific data models, water demand maps provide an intuitive, "at-a-glance" reference to guide irrigation scheduling decisions.
Rounding out the company’s irrigation optimization offerings for 2022 are an expanded range of analytics tools. Growers can "drill down" to assess the performance of specific varietals or rootstocks and easily compare crop health between fields and over time. Especially for large operations with lean teams working across multiple locations, the ability to quickly quantify the potential impact of management decisions will change how managers prioritize day-to-day tasks, as well as long-term investments in farm infrastructure.
These irrigation optimization tools and other new features will be made available to select customers in 2022.