Smart sensors help farmers improve crop water usage

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Queensland-based agtech company Goanna Ag have announced a partnership that will see sensors and analytics be used to help growers better understand how to maximise the use of irrigation water to grow crops. The WaterWise system features in-field sensors that measure the canopy temperature of crops every 15 minutes. The data is combined with weather forecasts before machine learning is applied to help predict the crop's water requirements for the next seven days.