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Flybird Innovations aiming to up yield with Siri irrigation controller
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Saturday, 09 September, 2017, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
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With its smart irrigation controller and automation system brand Siri, which is embedded with nanotechnology, the four-year-old Flybird Farm Innovations is now looking to elevate the standards in agro irrigation to improve the farm yield by saving water, power and labour costs.
Satish K S, founder and chief executive officer, Flybird Innovations, told FnB News, “Our automated irrigation and fertigation system is programmed to regulate water and fertilisers based on the soil moisture, temperature, humidity or rain. It will prevent under- and overirrigation of crops and plants.”
The company displayed its Siri Smart Nutrigator and the Nano version of its Siri Smart irrigation controller, which is a motor scheduler and digital starter, at the 2017 essay of India Foodex event, which concluded in Bengaluru recently.
“The Smart Nutrigator is a timer-based injection, expandable up to five tanks, with mainline pressure up to four bars. It has a stainless steel booster pump, low-high voltage cut-off, dry-run protection and an individual flow meter for each injector. The objective of the technology is to save water, as every drop of it counts,” Satish added.
“In the case of the smart irrigation system embedded with nanotechnology, it has a week-long timing scheduler, LED indicators for three-phase motor and controller status. The demand for this technology is immense. Agriculturists are satisfied and spread the benefits by word of mouth,” he added.
The products are manufactured in Bengaluru. The sensor-based irrigation controllers give the best results in production. This also takes the help of rain sensors to postpone or reschedule the irrigation of crops if there is a downpour.
The timer-based irrigation controller makes farmers to go easy on repeat and routine irrigation. However, a few crops require frequent and repeated irrigation for a fixed period.
“With regards to the volume-based irrigation controller, it helps farmers to utilise water resources efficiently,” said Satish.
“A few crops (for instance, grape vines) are sensitive a to higher amount of water. It affects the quality of the end produce. A lower amount of water will also stress the crop. In such cases, the volume-based controller is seen as a handy solution,” he added.
The company has also developed a mobile app and Web-based controller, which is aimed to target the next level farming, wherein irrigation and fertigation will be controlled though mobiles using GSM technology.
All the irrigation and fertigation data will be available to the customers in a graphical representation.
“The key advantages of this is the ability to remote control and monitor irrigation, fertigation, fogging and misting, Not only is the history of irrigation pattern accessible, but data analytics of the past irrigation can also be done and precise planning for the future is possible,” said Satish.
The company has inked partnerships with Mahendra Finance, Villgro, IIM-CLIE, Millennium Alliance and Artha Venture Challenge, among others.
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