A Site-Specific Strawberry Disease Monitoring Using Wireless Sensor Network.

The AgroClimate (http://agroclimate.org) is a climate forecast and decision support system developed by the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC) in partnership with the Cooperative State Extension Service to help agricultural producers to reduce risks associated with climate variability in the Southeastern United States. The Strawberry Advisory System (SAS) is one of the tools available in AgroClimate. SAS provides recommendations for timing of fungicide applications for control of strawberry fungal diseases based on weather information from Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN) stations avoiding unnecessary sprays and reducing production costs. The SAS tool is used by many growers, however the distance between fields and the weather stations available in the system can be a limiting factor for its use as weather observations can vary significantly over space. The closest station in the system may not represent well the conditions present in a growers field to ensure the correct prediction of the fungal diseases. To solve this problem, a low cost site-specific solution was proposed using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology. This technology is composed by distributed wireless Sensor Nodes (SN) with temperature, humidity and leaf wetness sensors. Each SN is equipped with a reliable wireless transmitter, an internal data logger, and a robust battery power system. Once installed on the grower’s field, the WSN will send the information over the internet to the AgroClimate server using a specific Gateway and generate specific recommendations for the fields where the WSN is installed thus increasing disease control efficiency and avoiding yield losses while reducing cost of production. WSN technology has a vast potential to also improve real-time frost control, improve the efficiency of water used in irrigation, green house control, and increase farms security systems.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Network, Strawberry Advisory System (SAS), Disease Control