Popovo, Targovishte region
Popovo, Targovishte region
90 ha
of open fields
Otbrani farm
“Otbrani” precisely controls the irrigation, reacts to equipment faults and saves more than 30% of the water resources with ONDO
Bulgaria
Nayden Petrov
The challenges
The Otbrani farm is growing crops that require precise irrigation and fertigation, in line with the specific climate conditions and the plant growth stage. When rains are scarce, the plants require adaptive irrigation, while at the same time saving the water resources. To optimize the fertilization expense, the farm is looking to fertilize the plants in an optimal manner – by using precise quantities, only when the plants are most likely to benefit from the fertilizer.
Any technical issues in the systems for irrigation and fertigation, even for a short period of time, can be fatal for the crop.
The farm owner and manager got in touch with ONDO, looking for a solution for automated irrigation and fertigation that would ensure fast, easy and precise management and control of these 2 processes. The solution is required to send notifications for every issue in the systems for irrigation and fertigation, so the tech team can react and resume the normal functioning of the equipment.
The solutions
- Automation of irrigation and fertigation with ONDO
- Solution integrated – ONDO LITE for open fields
- Farm land managed by ONDO – 90 ha
Considering the size of the farm, the team at ONDO recommended to “Otbrani” the integration of ONDO LITE solution. The latter is suitable for midsize farmers seeking to automate their farms but in need of managing and controlling a fairly small number of irrigation and fertigation valves and climate control units.
ONDO LITE allows to control 1 main pump or 1 main valve, 12 irrigation valves and 1 main water meter. With regards to the fertigation, by using ONDO LITE the farm can control up to 3 fertilizer dosing channels, 1 dosing buster pump and up to 3 fertimeters. ONDO LITE can control the vents, misting and circulation fans in the greenhouses.ONDO software platform allows to create up to 30 irrigation programs, 30 fertilizer dosing programs and 30 weekly schedules. In addition, it visualizes the full historical data on all automated processes, allows to activate failure alarms, adapt the irrigation and fertigation in line with a 3-day weather forecast and more.
ONDO team has integrated ONDO LITE with Otbrani’s current infrastructure for irrigation, fertigation and climate control.
The results
By using ONDO precision irrigation, fertigation and climate control system, the team at Otbrani ensured that the plants were receiving just the right amounts of water and nutrients – not more, not less than needed. When plants have their precise needs taken care of, they give back, and the farm registered a substantial increase in their crop yield.
The technical team is now managing and controlling the plant irrigation from their mobile devices, even before they have reached the farm. They noticed that the management of the irrigation and fertigation is now done much faster compared to their previous, manual type of management and control. The farm is also using less water now, compared to previous years. And even though issues with the irrigation cannot be avoided, the reaction time to those is considerably reduced, thanks to the timely alarms sent by ONDO.
About “Otbrani” farm
Open fields with raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries
90 ha
Popovo, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Nayden Petrov
Bulgaria
Nayden Petrov
Owner of Otbrani farm
The farmer Nayden Petrov created his farm 20 years ago, growing raspberries on less than 1 ha. Many years of gaining experience and hard work followed. Each year, he was adding more land to his farm and the fruits he was growing were becoming more and more diverse.
At the moment the farm has approximately 90 ha of land on which they grow raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. There are 30 employees who are permanently employed, while the seasonal workers in the summer period reach up to 300 people per day. The farm products are sold in major online and offline stores in Bulgaria, like Lidl supermarkets and the online store ebag.bg.
