Pulverizadores Fede has received the Outstanding Technical Innovation Award at FIMA 2018 by the Smartomizer, a worldwide innovation that will change the current model of special crop protection.
The Smartomizer combines the air-blast and a precision agronomic management platform (Specialty Crops Platform), resulting in an intelligent and connected air-blast. It is the only technological innovation that has been recognized as an agronomic management solution by the jury of experts from FIMA Agrícola.
With the Smartomizer, the technicians of the agricultural holdings can make the work order with all the treatment parameters from the digital platform and send it directly to the air-blast so that it can self-regulate. This equipment is intelligent because, depending on the plant mass, it suggests the appropriate dose and volume of air, which the technician can adjust under his professional criteria in response to other factors taken into consideration. This translates into approximately 48% drift reduction, according to the tests carried out by the IVIA (Valencian Institute of Agrarian Research) and the UMA-UPC (Unit of Agricultural Mechanization of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya). The important reduction is possible because the treatment is focused on the crop according to its characteristics, thus minimizing its loss in the environment. The spraying supposes 30% of the costs of production in the special crops and from it directly depends the quality of the harvest and it’s selling in the market. With the current state of the technique, approximately 80% of the failure in a treatment is a consequence of the incorrect use of the air-blast, in this sense the Smartomizer is presented as the solution to this problem shared by all the agrarian plantations. Its proactive system is able to detect if the spray parameters are correct and if they follow the technician’s instructions, sending warnings in case they are not correct in order to correct them at the moment. In addition, the operator visualizes at all times the treatment he is doing through a tablet to know if he has left any street untreated or if he has exceeded the proper dose to be able to solve errors during the treatment.
The Smartomizer allows a direct connection between the technician, the team and the operator, having at all times information about the application in real time. Once the treatment is finished, all the data are available on the digital platform so that the technician can visualize in detail on the map all the areas treated and know the incidents registered. This information gives great power to the agricultural companies since they can correct the treatments applying again only in the areas that require it.
Before the Smartomizer, it was not possible to know if the treatments had been carried out correctly until after they had been made, nor was there accurate information about them. Now all the parameters are registered and stored in the platform, so the technicians can analyze the data to make decisions that help improve the quality of the treatments. Likewise, the availability of these data supposes to count on the real traceability of the crops to guarantee that they have been treated in an optimal way, which represents an important improvement of the agrifood security standards.
The Smartomizador supposes a new concept of work that entails a disruptive change in the exercise of the work of technicians and operators, that in turn has reflection in the profitability of the companies that already have incorporated the technology in its agricultural exploitations thanks to obtaining and controlling valuable information recorded accurately during treatments.
