As the hot weather arrives, crops need to be watered at regular intervals. The Taitung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station has developed a sensor that works around the clock, attended or not, to automatically start up the irrigation system the moment a hot wind begins to blow on the fields. The device should be on the market next year.
In recent years, the Taitung area has seen more and more hot winds blowing, and director Lu Po-song of the Research and Extension Station’s Panchiu Substation said a flow of air from the southwest has created hot winds in the area between February and May.
These winds are fairly short in duration and impact only a small area, but after a typhoon passes by, more serious hot winds are often created. If this happens when an orchard is blossoming or setting fruit, the possibility of losing water instantaneously exists, and that would lead to large-scale flower and fruit drop.
The Taitung station director for the Office of Crop Environment, Lin Yung-shun, explained that the first generation sensors were used in 2007. Last year, the second generation was completed, featuring improvements allowing them to draw on solar power and run wirelessly. These are currently in testing, and the sales price may drop to around NT$60,000 (US$2,069). However, the devices are of use only in fields equipped with sprinkler systems.
Lin said the devices consist of a sensor and a microcomputer. After the move to wireless sensors, the danger of rodent damage to electrical cables was eliminated. The device can be programmed so that whenever the temperature exceeds 30 degrees Celsius with relative humidity below 40 percent, the sprinklers are turned on.
Settings can be adjusted based on the life cycle of the particular crop. For example, tomatoes require high humidity when blossoming, so the device can be set to trigger the sprinklers whenever the temperature rises.
Farmer Chen Yan-piao said this system is very convenient. With the hot winds striking Taitung more and more, at times even in the middle of the night, the system’s automatic triggering of the sprinkler system means he is relieved of the need to run to the fields to protect his crops.
