The challenge
Jersey Royal potatoes are grown on small, steep, often coastal fields. As part of its AgriTech work, Digital Jersey’s Smart Fields initiative set out to help growers produce the crop as efficiently and sustainably as possible, using water, fertiliser and labour only where they are needed.
What we did
- Deployed LoRaWAN soil sensors across the trial fields, measuring soil moisture, temperature and electrical conductivity (an indicator of nutrient levels) at root depth.
- Mapped every sensor to its field, so readings could be compared field by field and season by season.
- Collected the data on our platform: more than 120,000 readings in 2024 alone.
- Put the sensor readings alongside drone image analysis of the crop, so what the soil said could be compared with what the camera saw from above.
The result
Real-time, data-driven decisions in the field, from sensors that need no power or cabling and survive a season in the soil. Read our original post, and more about Digital Jersey’s initiatives.