Improving Irrigation and Disease Management in Irrigated Potato Fields using IoT-based Sensor Technology

Abstract

Abstract. Potatoes benefit from irrigation management because of the significant effect of irrigation on both yield and quality. A shallow root zone combined with daily evapotranspiration makes precise irrigation of potatoes difficult. Not watering the potatoes sufficiently can result in yield loss and cause misshapen tubers, vascular necrosis, or hollow heart defects. Improper irrigation schedules or unnecessary irrigation can waste resources, but can also increase the potential risk of plant diseases. Plant disease can substantially reduce yield and quality of product, and even more importantly impact it during the storage, which are negatively affecting the sustainability and economics of production. Therefore, proper irrigation management is important to maximize water use efficiency while minimizing the risk of plant disease. Sensor technology can help to manage irrigation properly, but only 7% of farms in Michigan use it. This project focused on understanding the effects of an IoT (Internet of Things) sensor-based irrigation scheduling method in irrigated potato farms through demonstration. The fields were divided into two sections to demonstrate grower‘s traditional irrigation strategy and IoT sensor-based irrigation scheduling. Multiple sensor monitoring systems were installed to monitor soil moisture levels, leaf wetness duration, irrigation amount, precipitation, air temperature, and relative humidity. Plant diseases including white mold incidence and index, early blight incidence and severity, early die incidence and index, were monitored. In addition, potato yields (cwt/acre) and quality, such as specific gravity, vascular discoloration, internal brown spot, common scab, rhizoctonia black scurf, were observed. Based on the observation from 2022, the team has found that the IoT sensor-based irrigation scheduling helped to save about 1 inch of application in one of the demonstration field, while maintaining a similar average yield as the grower‘s existing irrigation strategy (crop condition and regular schedule). This led to increasing Irrigation Water Use Efficiency (IWUE); IoT sensor-based irrigation scheduling method and growers‘s traditional irrigation strategy were 33.2 cwt/acre/in and 28.6 cwt/acre/in, respectively. Furthermore, no consistent differences were detected between irrigation programs based on tuber size profiles, quality metrics, or blemish diseases in samples from the demonstration fields.

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