Strawberries aren’t a top export for China but that doesn’t mean the country’s agriculturists aren’t focused on boosting production.
To improve production and profitability of the crop, a greenhouse producer in China’s Shunyi district in Beijing trialed an IoT-based solution in partnership with China Mobile and a local equipment producer.
According to the trio, profitability in agriculture not only depends on maximizing yield and quality but also reducing the number of laborers needed to monitor and harvest the crop — which made IoT the best technology to experiment with.
The producer in the Shunyi district decided to trail the IoT-solution in a greenhouse setting as it made it easier to control air and soil temperatures as compared to an open field.
The trial was set up to optimize growth in five of the producer’s winter greenhouses, covering an area of approximately 0.33 hectares, using connected IoT sensors and big data analytics.
Sensors installed in the greenhouse collected data such as light intensity, air and growing substrate conditions (CO₂ concentration, temperature, humidity), and leaf moisture, among other things.