SENECA and Plastic Puglia together for precision farming

Plastic Puglia, an Italian company active since 1967 and a world leader in irrigation and precision agriculture, launches "Smart Irrigation", a control system for irrigation pumping systems capable of remotely monitoring and managing processes in the field through the combined use of innovative technological solutions. The system's potential also extends to weather forecasting (thanks to the integrated Agrismart-IoT weather module), automatic fertigation, electricity and water consumption control, and the implementation of information processing and representation algorithms.

Radio technologies

The Smart Irrigation system includes a compact control unit capable of acquiring data and transmitting it using wireless technologies and SENECA devices. In particular, LoRa technology collects data from a wide range of pressure, humidity, and temperature sensors, flow meters, and valve actuators. All this without the need for external power supply systems, as LoRa technology works with long-life lithium batteries integrated into the devices themselves. In synergistic form, the SENECA Z-AIR-1 869 MHz radio modem allows real-time management of remote parts of the system with ModBUS RTU protocol. SENECA radio modems are used to supervise the performance and remotely control the inverters of the system's delivery pump, allowing remote start and stop commands.

A strategic solution

Smart Irrigation is a strategic solution for "digital" and 4.0 agriculture. The irrigation pumping systems allow control of the working and energy parameters (such as delivery pressure, working frequency, and current consumption), maintenance supervision through inverter temperature control, and the exchange of status messages and alarms. With "Smart Irrigation" solutions, it is also possible to detect sudden load variations in the field, such as pipe leaks or the opening of additional irrigation zones, variations that can lead to the malfunction or blockage of the irrigation system. Once detected anomalies, SENECA radio modules ensure the sending of remote signals and the automatic reset of the working pressure, modulating the power of the delivery pump and remotely controlling the inverter.