How Smartphones are Shaping the Future of Farming
UNAM's FES specialists develop low-cost technology using smartphones to digitize crop images, determining plant health and estimating yield. Affordable and accessible, this innovation empowers farmers to make better decisions, integrating cutting-edge tech into agriculture.
In a groundbreaking initiative, specialists from the UNAM's Cuautitlán Faculty of Higher Education (FES) are spearheading the development of low-cost technology aimed at digitizing images of agricultural crops to assess their physiological status. This cutting-edge solution, an experimental model currently being tested on chia plantations within the academic institution, comprises a free mobile application (App), a database, and an algorithm. Its results will empower producers with valuable information to make better decisions, such as adjusting mineral nutrition, evaluating water conditions, and monitoring plant health, ultimately leading to enhanced productivity.
Headed by researcher José Luis Sánchez Millán, along with the contributions of thesis student Frida Reséndiz Romero from the Agricultural Engineering degree, the project utilizes a standard smartphone camera to capture images during different stages of plant growth. These images are then processed digitally with the support of freely available software and an algorithm embedded within the mobile App.
