Artificial intelligence will start helping farmers water their crops under a new University of Hawaiʻi project.
An AI irrigation management system called CropManage will be connected to 14 participating farms.
The software will access data from weather stations and combine it with information about the farms, such as crop types, farm size and location, to determine how much water they need.
“Preliminary results show that CropManage could reduce the amount of irrigation water by 35%, or even sometimes 40%, and enhance crop yields by 20% or even more. So, CropManage lowers farmers’ cost of water and labor through fewer irrigation events,” said Sayed Bateni, the project’s principal investigator.
Bateni is a professor at UH Mānoa’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering and Water Resources Research Center.
The project's goal is to help farmers grow their crops efficiently while also conserving water.
Farmers can make a CropManage account to add the characteristics of their farms. It then determines how much and when farmers need to irrigate their crops.
The results of the project will be shared with other producers, with the goal being a widespread management tool.
UH received $2.4 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the project. It’s expected to start this year and end in 2029.
