Soilsens, a startups established at IIT Bombay, has designed Soil moisture and Weather sensing stations, at a considerably reduced cost, with capability to transmit data to cloud through a GSM modem, in real time. They can provide raw data plus advisory, in a dynamic manner, and enable farmers to provide inputs in an optimum and timely manner and maximize output. Such data over time collected from many locations, will also enable machine learning based advisories and enable farmers to practice smart agriculture. Soilsens products fulfil critical needs for smart agriculture, which in turn is a critical aspect of Demand side management under the PGWM processes. 

WIN is supporting this start-up for product market validation through its Community Partner: Arid Communities and Technologies (ACT), at Trial location: Kutch Dist

ACT, under the WIN Foundation supported  project area of PGWM, selected following instruments and equipment for demonstration of community centric PHM set up.

  • Two Soilsens weather stations for two of the model villages under PGWM. 
    • One village has irrigation dam and one village is entirely dependent on groundwater. 
    • These stations provide realtime data with cloud storage for (i) Wind speed and direction, (ii) Ambient humidity, (iii) Ambient temperature, (iv) Solar radiation and (v) Rainfall
    • Data is available on dashboard and also on farmer’s mobile. 
  • Six Solisensgo portable moisture meters for BJs and for farmer groups, 
    • To measure soil moisture at various locations on selected farms, to understand the moisture profile and take decision for irrigation in optimized manner.
  • One Soilsens station(fixed type) for K-Marc group of farmers (15 farmer’s group)
    • To capture continuous data on soil moisture at one location in the K-Marc group of farmers, and to observe moisture pattern over time, over different seasons.

About Proximal SoilSens Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Soilsens)

SoilSens provides state-of-the-art tools (sensors and IoT platforms) to farmers and helps them make agriculture profitable and sustainable at extremely affordable prices, using patented sensor technology and IoT systems for precision agriculture. SoilSens systems helps agriculture by generating the farm-specific field and weather data required for optimum irrigation, optimum soil/crop nutrients and disease prediction. Soilsens is also looking at upskilling the people who have gone back to villages because of COVID to help them become the ambassadors of technology.

Soilsens was established at IIT Bombay by Dr. Rajul Patkar, PhD, IIT Bombay, along with co-founders: Prof. Maryam S Baghini, Professor, IIT Bombay, and Prof. V Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi and formerly faculty at IIT Bombay.

SoilSens is currently also developing a lab-on-a-farm. Various parameters like primary nutrients, secondary nutrients, pH, EC (Electrical conductivity) and OC (Organic Carbon) are the parameters required by the farmers to get proper recommendations and amendments required for the field. Current methods are time-consuming and are measured once every three years by the Government of India. With the introduction of lab-on-a-farm, the soil analysis for these parameters can be carried out instantly and accurately at the farm/village level, thus enabling timely action by farmers.

For more details, visit soilsens website

 

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