On Saturday, November 26, the second edition of the agricultural forum “La Sembradora de Ideas” (the Seeder of Ideas) of Monzón was held. The event, organized by the Department of Innovation and Digital Transformation, was entitled “Drop by drop. Intelligence and precision in irrigation”. The day began at the San Francisco de Monzón auditorium with an event conducted by journalist José María Paraled and continued with a meal and a field visit to Bodegas Sommos of Barbastro.
The Seeder of Ideas wanted on this occasion to promote the dissemination of knowledge and technical discussion about new trends in intelligent irrigation, as well as its possibilities in terms of the relationship with precision agriculture. The forum was attended by three members of the RAMA group.
Enrique Playán made a presentation on “precision and intelligent irrigation: from idea to applications. In it, he showed how irrigation can contribute to precision agriculture, comparing it with other practices that are focused on variable application, such as pesticides or fertilizers. He presented some related applications developed in the RAMA group in recent years. These applications focused on irrigation advisory services, automatic irrigation, low-pressure irrigation, whole-farm sprinkler irrigation simulation, or the application of Sentinel imagery to farmers’ irrigation management.
José Cavero and Raquel Salvador participated in the round table entitled “techniques for precision and intelligent irrigation”.
José Cavero presented research results on the effect of irrigation frequency and timing. He explained why in corn it is important to avoid daytime irrigation. Aspects such as leaf wetness make daytime irrigation particularly inadvisable in corn cultivation, while in alfalfa this is not so important. He also presented the relationship between high-frequency irrigation and water losses due to crop interception and the absorption of ions by the leaves.
Raquel Salvador stressed the importance of the SIAR network of automatic agrometeorological stations, developed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in coordination with the Autonomous Communities. This network, which began to be installed in the irrigable areas of Aragon in 2003, is proving to be very important in advising farmers on irrigation requirements, improving irrigation efficiency and therefore conserving water and energy.
The RAMA group acknowledges the organizational effort and is grateful for the invitation to participate by Jesús Guerrero (Counselor for Innovation and Digital Transformation of Monzón) and José Ramón Acín (manager of Finca Bizcarra and Agrarium). Special thanks to Isaac Claver (Monzón city Mayor). Thanks are also due to Chema Paraled and his communication team, and to Javier Torres and the rest of technical staff at La Sembradora) .
