Planning, organization & monitoring

In the gaiasense app, each field has its own “page”. Now, you can quickly and easily design each field yourself, add a name, a specific area and crop to organize and track them better. On the tab map, you can draw the perimeter of the field with your finger. In case you are in your field at that particular moment, by selecting the location button, the map focuses on that specific spot. This makes the process of mapping and registering the field even simpler, and you can see on the screen all the information corresponding to each one.

Specialized information

Each of your fields is displayed in the application with its satellite image. By clicking on its image, you can have the following information about each one at your fingertips: vegetation index, water indicators, chill hours, growth calendars, weather forecast, suitability of spraying. This way, you know what’s happening in each of your fields, in a simple and easy to understand way on your mobile phone. What does that give you? It just helps you make the best decisions for your production and do your work more easily and efficiently.

Now, every crop and every field is literally in your hands!
Easily and quickly, from your mobile phone, you can add to each field a name, area and type of crop, but also change its dimensions and boundaries at any time.
With the gaiasense app, all the processes of configuring each field are carried out in no time, in a simple and easy to understand way.

Keeping track of your work in a digital calendar

gaiasense and the gaiasense app enable you to keep a digital log of all the work you do in the field, in real time. Irrigation, plant protection, fertilization (it has up-to-date databases of fertilizers and plant protection products), harvesting, crop care and soil management are all entered in a user-friendly and simple way on your mobile phone, through the app.
This way, you have all the cultivation work on each of your fields in detail, at any given time.

Specialized meteorological variables

The gaiasense app gives you a three-hour five-day weather forecast, specifically for your area and not for the whole county. In fact, the data it provides is accurate and real-time, so you get an insight into the weather conditions in your field without having to monitor a multitude of sites, apps or bulletins to get an approximate idea of what the weather will be like tomorrow.

Reliable forecasts thanks to over 400 agrometeorological stations

The comparative advantage of NEUROPUBLIC’s gaiasense system over other weather forecasting services is the extensive network of agrometeorological stations in rural areas of Greece. The data collected by these stations are assimilated into the gaiasense forecasts, thus dramatically increasing the accuracy of the forecasts and, consequently, their reliability.
At the moment, the network has exceeded 400 stations and the plan is to more than double it in the next period.

The gaiasense app warns you about extreme weather events such as hail, frost, heavy rainfall, heatwave, etc. 48 hours before they happen!
Even if this probability is around 10%, you will get a notification on your phone with the probable time of occurrence. This gives you time to take action to protect your crops.

Spray suitability index

Statistics show that 2 out of 3 sprays (66%) in a growing season may be unnecessary or incorrect. With the gaiasense app, however, you know when the conditions are right to spray and you don’t make a mistake. In other words, this means: a) lower production costs, since you save on unnecessary spraying, b) more protection for your crop, since your crop protection is done in a more efficient way, c) better quality production, since you use less pesticides. In addition, you save valuable time from fewer visits to your field and protect the environment from unnecessary agrochemicals.

How does gaiasense achieve this? By combining meteorological weather forecasts with meteorological conditions that affect the effectiveness of the spraying. The calculation of spray suitability is done for each of your fields individually and for each three-hour period within the next 5 days of the forecast. And it is displayed on the weather forecast screen in a simple colour scale.
For example, when there is a forecast for high winds, spraying conditions are ineffective to dangerous. gaiasense calculates the above data and displays red (meaning that conditions prohibit spraying) at that time. In fact, in the red time intervals the application additionally shows you the reason why spraying is not allowed.
Conversely, if conditions are favourable, green (conditions are ideal) or light green/light green/light grey is displayed, indicating that conditions are not ideal but allow spraying to take place.

Using images from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-2 satellite, gaiasense takes a new image of each field every 5 days.

With these satellite images and the vegetation index, you can simply and quickly see if your crop is at risk of weeds.

In particular, you can identify weeds in fields sown with annual crops. If vegetation is observed through the images during periods when the field is uncultivated, then these are weeds that should be controlled before the next sowing.

In addition, the index can reflect problems in irrigation, the effects of natural phenomena (heat waves, droughts, floods, etc.).

Reference evapotranspiration index (ETo)
With the ETo index you can know which day or week your crop needs more or less water. How can you find out? Simply by comparing water loss (ETo index) from day to day or from week to week.
Higher values mean your crop lost a lot of water and will probably need more in the next day or week. However, the ETO indicator does not tell you how much water was lost. You can, however, find it out by connecting to the gaiasense2 package, where, among other things, the crop’s evapotranspiration ETc is calculated, measuring the water loss in a specific crop and specific soil, and microclimate conditions of the field and the irrigation system.

Precipitation index
With the precipitation index you can find out how much rain has accumulated in a certain period of time. Precipitation, like reference evapotranspiration (ETo), is measured in millimeters of height (mm – equivalent to cubic meters per hectare), which are accumulated over a certain period of time.
High rainfall values in a particular 24-hour period mean that the rain that fell on that plot of land increased the humidity significantly and you don’t need to water.
Statistics show that you can reduce the amount of irrigation water by up to 43% if you properly utilize the information from the water indicators of gaiasense1. In other words, this means: a) a reduction in production costs, since you save irrigation water from unnecessary watering, b) greater protection of your crop, since the extra moisture can favor the growth of certain fungi, and c) better quality agricultural products .

Days of development
Growth degree days show how many hours of temperature a plant has “accumulated”. The longer these hours are, the faster this plant will grow.
What are they for? With the growth days you can compare different plots or growing seasons and understand in which cases you will have an early or late harvest. And so organize your work better, so you can save valuable time.
In order for the gaiasense app to start measuring growth days, the start time of the crop must be determined. In perennial crops this is usually after dormancy and in annual crops, immediately after sowing or transplanting.
All you have to do is enter the start dates for each plot of land you have declared in the application. The system will then begin recording hourly temperature degrees above the initial set point.

Chill hours
Chill hours are the period of low temperatures that several species of fruit trees need during the winter to break dormancy and be able to flower and bud in the spring.
The gaiasense app automatically calculates the cold hours separately, for each crop and plot of land you have entered, through the accurate recording of the atmospheric temperature in each area.
What can you tell by looking at the cold hours at the end of winter? The cold hours inform you about whether or not your crop will be delayed in coming out of dormancy, and even if it will present a problem with flowering and fruiting. In any case, you have an early indication of what to do.

Vegetation Index (NDVI) & satellite images
The gaiasense app calculates the index (NDVI) using images from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-2 satellite, which takes a new image every 5 days. With these satellite images and the vegetation index you can easily and quickly see how “alive” your field is.
In short, the greener the color in the satellite image, the larger the value of the index gets closer to 1. The more yellow and brown the color, the smaller the value of the index gets closer to 0. So if , you see some color variation in more than one image during the growing season, then there is probably a problem and it is worth doing a field inspection.

Vegetation index & weed detection
An additional possibility that the vegetation index gives you is the detection of weeds in fields sown with annual crops. If through the images vegetation is observed during periods when the field is uncultivated, then these are weeds that should be fought before the next sowing.

Vegetation index & irrigation problems
By monitoring the vegetation index (NDVI) satellite images at different stages of growth, you can identify unevenness problems in the irrigation system and correct them.

Vegetation index & fertilization problems
By watching how the vegetation index changes in each plot during the growing season, you can spot problems with plant growth. If with a visit to your field you see that there is no problem neither with watering, nor with attack by enemies and diseases, the problem may be due to fertilization and with a correction it can be solved.

The ideal crop for your field
The gaiasense app uses climate data as well as soil map data that covers the largest percentage of arable land in Greece, to find the soil-climate suitability of your plot of land.
The soil suitability shows to what extent the specific soil conditions that apply in your field, combined with the climatic conditions in the wider area, favor or hinder the development of a specific crop.
With more than 140 crops sorted by soil suitability, you can now clearly and accurately know which crops thrive in your field or which of your fields are suitable for specific crops.
The soil suitability of the gaiasense app can be used as a first indication of crop suitability. Especially if there is no previous experience of its performance in the specific area.
In no case, however, can the indication replace good practices for assessing the suitability of a crop on a particular plot of land, which include the advice of an experienced agronomist.

All the answers to your questions
Do you have questions about smart farming? Want to find out how to get the most out of the gaiasense app? No problem! Open the gaiasense app, go to the digital guide and find all the answers. For irrigation, fertilization, plant protection, smart farming, and all other agricultural issues that concern you every day.
With the gaiasense app you have a digital “encyclopedia” of agricultural production and smart farming, in your hand!

Thanks to the largest network of agrometeorological stations in the Greek countryside and the weather forecast platform Smart Weather by gaiasense, you can have a reliable 5-day weather forecast specifically for your field and not for the entire region.
In addition, the system provides you with early warnings of severe weather conditions long before they occur.

The gaiasense app and specifically the weather forecast platform Smart Weather by gaiasense provides subscribers with 24-hour weather updates across the gaiasense network.
Therefore, you can gain an insight of what is happening not only in your crop and region, but also in the entire territory.

Thanks to the gaiasense app you can receive a Nutrient Balance for the field of your choice.

What does this mean;

The Nutrient balance service analyzes the soil fertility on the plot in both basic soil properties and nutrient content. It calculates the availability but also the losses of nutrients and compares them with the needs of the crop. If the needs are not covered by the soil, it proceeds to advice of adding the missing elements. For the addition of the elements, the appropriate fertilizers, the exact dosage and the time of their application are recommended for the best possible results, always with an emphasis on the protection of natural resources.

How will you calculate it?

Log in to the gaiasense app. On the home page, through the menu, you can choose “Nutrient Balance Issue”. The list of your plots will appear, from where you can choose the one for which you wish to receive the Balance. Next, you select a crop from those currently running on that field.

Then, you choose an advanced package territorial analysis from the available ones. We suggest that you prefer the territorial analysis that fits best chronologically with the period you will choose next.

Finally, you choose the period of time for which you are interested in calculating the Nutrient Balance. The time range you can choose is set to not exceed one year (365 days) and include one growing season.

By pressing “Issue” you receive a report on the Balance in question.

It is noted that after the Cultivation Period Needs have been assessed, the Fertilization Applications you have recorded, for the period of your choice, appear. The final Nutrient Balance and the corresponding Characterization result from the comparison of the Needs with the set of Applications.

If the total of any element added exceeds the needs of the crop for the selected growing season, then the Balance will be labeled “Surplus”. If, on the contrary, it falls short of the needs, it will be characterized as “Deficit”, and if the needs are exactly met, it is given the designation “Neutral Balance”.

* Note: The Nutrient Balance service presupposes that for the plot of land of your choice, a soil analysis of a full package (advanced) has already been registered on the gaiasense platform, by you or your agricultural consultant. Otherwise, the order will not be able to be executed.

Thanks to the gaiasense app, you will be able to receive Nutrition recipe for any field you wish.

What does this mean;
The Nutrition Recipe service analyzes the soil fertility on the field in both basic soil properties and nutrient content. It calculates the availability but also the losses of nutrients and compares them with the needs of the crop. If the needs are not covered by the soil, it proceeds to advice of adding the missing elements. For the addition of the elements, the appropriate fertilizers, the exact dosage and the time of their application are recommended for the best possible results, always with an emphasis on the protection of natural resources.

How will you get the Recipe?
Log in to the gaiasense app. On the home page, through the menu, you can choose “Nutrition Recipe Issue”. The list of your parcels will appear, from where you can choose the one you wish to receive advice on. Next, you select a crop from those currently running on that field.

Finally, you choose a territorial analysis from the available ones and by pressing “Issue” you receive the advice.

We recommend that you select the most recent soil analysis on file so that the advice produced is based on data that best reflects the true state of the soil.

It is worth noting that the gaiasense app has information from a qualified digital database with the nutrient needs of the reference crop for a growing season.

* Note: The Nutrition Recipe service presupposes that for the plot of land of your choice, a soil analysis of a full package (advanced) has already been registered on the gaiasense platform, by you or your agricultural consultant. Otherwise, the command will not be able to be executed.

With gaiasense you can calculate your carbon footprint and reap long-term benefits if you join the effort to achieve the goals of the “European Green Deal” and the implementation of agricultural practices related to “Carbon Farming”.

The information for the products’ carbon footprint calculation reveals qualitative and quantitative characteristics necessary to calculate the final result and/or to convert it into a comparable size in relation to similar crops/fields.

Thanks to access to the Smart Weather by gaiasense weather forecasting platform, you can have historical climatic data from the 400 agrometeorological stations of the gaiasense network – the most extensive in Greece – by region and by crop.

Temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, solar radiation, evapotranspiration and other data are at your disposal in order to better know the area where your farm is located and to better organize your cultivation.