To the casual observer, growing crops is fairly straightforward: Plant the seed, add fertilizer and water, wait (and wait), and harvest. The reality is more complex, especially when crops span hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of acres. This is why Farmers Edge is leveraging the power of IoT to help farmers manage operations more effectively and track historical trends in weather patterns, crop yields, and market conditions to position their farm for the future.

Farmers Edge deploys remote weather stations and telematics devices on a farmer's land and equipment. These devices transmit data to Azure IoT Hub, where it is analyzed using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. With the insights they glean, farmers can more easily monitor soil conditions and environmental variables like wind direction and precipitation levels. And with access to real-time data, they can fine-tune variables such as the best variant of seed to plant, or the type and amount of fertilizer to use in a particular field or field quadrant, based on current nutrient levels.

Farmers Edge provides an additional layer of years' worth of aggregated field data that build on the time-honored traditions of agriculture, helping farmers increase crop yields and thrive in shifting weather and market conditions.

Tags: agriculture, AI, Azure IoT Hub, Machine learning

Microsoft Corporation published this content on 24 January 2018 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 24 January 2018 18:34:03 UTC.

Original documenthttps://blogs.microsoft.com/iot/2018/01/23/farmers-improve-management-crop-yields-iot/

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