Planthack — A smart agriculture solution empowering farmers to grow better crops
In an agricultural field, the presence of plant diseases causes substantial loss to farmers. According to IRJET research, crop losses due to diseases, pests, animals and weeds are about 20 to 40% of the global agricultural productivity. The traditional method to identify diseases by visually inspecting certain features like texture, color and shape of leaves is not always effective. So, most farmers, across the world, hire professional agriculturists to diagnose their crops for diseases in large farms. However, it’s a time-consuming and expensive affair.
The smart agriculture market was valued at USD 6.34 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach USD 13.50 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 12.39% during the forecast period. — MarketsandMarkets™
Our smart agricultural solution with AI integration, named Planthack, is a digital tool for cultivators. The AI model can accurately predict the favorable or unfavorable condition of plant-growth based on gathered data on humidity, temperature, sunlight, CO2 and moisture level. This IoT-enabled solution plays a major role in simplifying the early plant disease identification and management for large commercial farming operations by cutting costs and improving food security.
The traditional method that some farmers use has no modern techniques to automate plant disease detection and classification. This leads to a huge reduction in the quantity and quality of agricultural production, because, farmers fail to detect plant diseases in large farms. Hence, Planthack is an inevitable digital assistant for farmers, enabling continuous monitoring for plant disease without much labor in remote farm areas.
How Planthack works
Our IoT-based solution is integrated with AI capabilities to help farmers effectively identify approaching diseases in advance and make a better decision on how to treat it. The farmer can find out the location of the diseased plant from the remote console using Planthack and take a picture of symptomatic plant organ like leaves and perform a quantitative assessment of plant disease intensity. Planthack’s AI model will provide a detailed report about the plant disease type, root causes, symptoms and potential treatment depending on the stage of plant growth.
Here are four ways Planthack is useful to the farming community
1. Round-the-clock crop monitoring
Farmers across the globe experience heavy food losses due to crop infection from pathogens such as fungi, virus, bacteria and more. To minimize crop damage, farmers can adopt an advanced disease detection and identification solution like Planthack. Farmers can check the moisture, temperature, and humidity content of the leaf and determine nutrient deficiency and disease infection which can spread in crops and decrease the yield.
2. Advanced fertilizer calculator
This solution also has an inbuilt fertilizer calculator that helps to calculate the appropriate amount of necessary fertilizers to use. This not only saves money on pesticides but also protects the environment from increasing pollution through Agrochemicals. Even growers can take preventive steps well in advance to stop harvest losses by identifying the region on a farm which is under high risk of a disease outbreak.
3. Effective plant health monitoring
In large farms, identifying disease infection in plants with visual observation can result in a flawed diagnosis. This is where an AI-enabled smart agricultural solution like Planthack comes into the picture. This smart agricultural solution can help cultivators to analyze if any disease persists in the plants from the captured image of a leaf. Using the image, the application can recommend customized plant disease treatment based on symptoms, triggers, and fertilizers.
4. Get Planthack community support
Amateur farmers face barriers in adopting the right farming practices. Planthack can help farmers to connect with experienced farmers, botanists, agriculturist researchers and others to discover the latest information on farming techniques. The Planthack community will keep an extensive and updated database of plant diseases. Apart from that, they can also discuss farming ideas and exchange insights.
5. Leverage smartphone-based AI application
Planthack is a mobile AI assistant for farmers to diagnose diseases in the plants and provide relevant treatment for the same. This smart agriculture solution can send alerts to farmers and help them prevent a probable outbreak of diseases, thereby preventing yield losses. This application is integrated with AI algorithms for automatic disease identification with smart recommendations for farmers to make better decisions.
The final say
The global agriculture market is majorly driven by increasing adoption of smart agriculture across the globe. This is due to the rise in demand for the better quality of crops produced and an increase in crop yield. With a smart agriculture solution like Planthack, farmers can control plant disease, maximize crop yield and increase overall profitability. If you have any queries regarding Planthack and how can it help your farm produce better crops, talk to our experts.
Originally published at https://www.softwebsolutions.com on August 23, 2019.