November 10, 2016

Farmers set to benefit from new partnership between Yara and Pessl Instruments

Yara and Pessl Instruments announced a new partnership to market the Yara Water Solution as part of the Pessl Instruments' range of smart farming solutions.

The new partnership will offer improved crop management for farmers by optimizing the use of water and crop nutrition. "Collaborating with Pessl Instruments enables us to offer a solution that increases the profitability and productivity of farming through greater nutrient and water use efficiency," said Pål Øystein Stormorken, Head of Application & Crop Management System in Yara.

Pessl Instruments manufactures, develops and distributes real-time, internet-linked, solar-powered measurement devices which are connected to the FieldClimate.com platform.

The move is another step in strengthening Yara's precision farming offering, adding improved solutions to allow real-time monitoring of crop, soil and weather data to ensure optimal use of scarce resources like water, land and nutrients.

What is the Yara Water Sensor?

This new method is a continuous, non-destructive measurement of changes in turgor pressure in the leaf.

Turgor pressure is the pressure caused by fluid pushing against the cell wall of plant cells. It boosts the plant's rigidness so that it stands straight and maintains normal cellular functions. As the turgor pressure is the driving force for plant growth and fruit production, proper water management is important. If a plant is not able to access enough water, it cannot maintain turgor pressure, causing it to wilt. The Yara Water Sensor measures the difference between magnetic pressure and turgor.

A Yara Water Solution Kit consists of 10 Yara Water-Sensors to be installed on five different trees (within a range of 500 meters) and is optimal for irrigation plots up to 15 ha.

The Water Solution

The aim is to apply water and nutrients on demand to optimize the resources, improving crop quality and quantity.

The combined Pessl-Yara solution offers real-time measurement of weather, soil moisture and turgor pressure in the leaves, in addition to analytical data from soil and leaf analysis.

Farmers will be able to access real-time recommendations for irrigation and recommendations for crop nutrition, in addition to historical information of evapotranspiration and weather forecast displayed through "MyYara", which is Yara's farmer engagement portal for crop management.

The Yara Water Solution is currently available for olives and citrus. Research and trials for additional crops like grapevine, pome and stone fruits, nuts and coffee are ongoing and will be launched in due course.

Water, weather and soil data on the same platform

The Yara Water Sensors are integrated into the existing hardware platform of Pessl Instruments.

"The Yara Water Sensor data, together with the weather and soil data, are sent wirelessly via Pessl Instruments’ proprietary radio network and their API to the MyYara platform", said Gottfried Pessl, CEO and Founder of Pessl Instruments.