Semios Doesn’t Just Gather Irrigation Data
Company aims to help growers process data gathered from their farms to ensure smart and sustainable water management programs
There’s irrigation data, and there’s irrigation data.
Semios is in the business of providing the latter – that being precise and informative data to help growers manage their crop fields intelligently.
Semios helps growers plan, monitor, and evaluate their irrigation programs from one place to get the best results, especially from limited water resources. A crucial element in the planning, monitoring and evaluation is data.
Semios’ irrigation data focuses on in-canopy climate, soil moisture, evapotranspiration (ET), and overall water management. With in-canopy climate, growers can track per-acre temperature and humidity and make seven-day irrigation forecasts. Soil moisture data relies on Semios’ artificial intelligence to provide water content measurements. ET data is taken at a per-acre level so growers can pinpoint risks. With Semios’ overall management plan, growers can plan their weekly irrigation schedules from one dashboard with all the key measurements they need for optimal water management.
A screenshot of the Semios Crop Management Platform's Evapotranspiration page, which allows growers to view their site-specific, in-canopy evapotranspiration and a 7-day forecast.
Ben Smith, the Lead Irrigation Technical Sales Specialist for Semios, explains that it’s not just about the company’s leading-edge technological ability to help growers collect data — it’s about Semios’ capacity to help growers process that data. It’s what sets Semios apart from other water management providers.
“We’re getting raw data, and we’re spending a lot of time and resources processing it,” Smith says. “We have a large data science team that’s in the background doing a lot of things.”
Smith explains there are three keys to collecting useful and reliable data. The first stage is the quality of the installation of water sensors and other equipment, he says, noting that it’s Semios’ responsibility to do this for its clients. Second, it’s vital to make sure that installed devices are calibrated properly to assure the data is of high caliber, which Semios also performs for its clients.
Semios' professional Field Services Team working on installing soil moisture sensors on a customer's site.
The third key is the appropriate “mixing and matching” of data to gain new insights, Smith says. For instance, while real-time data can be presented in a traditional graph that shows irrigation depths on a field, Smith says Semios takes it to another level by showing a diagram depicting the amount of water in the soil in through various colors.
“Instead of trying to decipher what a line means in a graph, you see the information in a very literal way,” Smith says, noting the data can show how deep the water penetrated the soil in inches and over what time.
“All this information helps drive better decision making,” Smith adds.
The data is coming over constantly, so it’s always timely when it comes to processing it. It’s quality data, and data that growers can “look at it and say, ‘Now I understand what’s going on and now I know what to do,’” Smith notes.
The data also reveals other factors such as how much salt is in the soil and where the salt is moving throughout the soil. Such data is vital because it can show if fertilizer is moving out of a plant’s reach, Smith says.
Semios also offers insect pest management and disease management solutions in its portfolio that is compatible with its water management solutions. As growers know, insects and disease can and will impact irrigation. Semios’ water management data can tell growers how water is interacting with various insects and diseases so growers can better embrace integrated pest management (IPM).
“We take all this data from different sources and learn how it all interacts to form a big picture,” Smith explains. “There’s so much to learn.”
With that big picture in hand, Semios can make precise irrigation recommendations to its clients. That’s also where Semios differentiates itself from the competition.
“It’s a custom approach,” Smith says. “And not just for the entire farm, but for each field on a farm.”
Semios’ water management tools are recommended for permanent crops. “When it comes to putting irrigation equipment in the field, it’s easier to put it out in a permanent crop and have it last five years or more versus putting it out in a row crop where you have to put equipment out yearly and remove it,” Smith says
But he notes that Semios is looking at new techniques to expand effectively into other crop types.