Korean growers trial government funded greenhouse automation
The Smart Farm Service is developed by the Korean Rural Development Administration and enables the Korean farmers to fully control their growth and operations with an automatic program. The ventilation system for example, can be activated automatically when the humidity inside the greenhouse exceeds 80 percent. And at night, the thermal screen system closes automatically based on a decision by the climate computer. Just like many other modern greenhouse automation technology and software that is available, the program can be remote-controlled from a computer or a smartphone.
Recently the growers that used the system over the past gathered and offered their feedback. They have been using the Smart Farm Service in a variety of crops and three of these crops saw notable improvements thanks to the use of the system. Growers of Chrysanthemums for example, could pick the flowers ten days earlier, and they decreased the energy use in the greenhouse with up to 35%. Grape growers said that the system helped to maintain a better fruit quality and said that they saw a decrease in the berry cracking rate from 12 to 5%.
The Smart Farm Service was also trialed at the tomato greenhouses of Lee Keyeong-sook. "It reduces time of traveling back and forth and I am less worried as I can check the status of the crop anytime, anywhere", she said in a news feature on arirang.co.kr.
Yet, the growers also gave same feedback in order to improve the system. Over the next year, 7 more farms will be added to the trial scheme and will continue to evaluate to further improve the system.
Source: arirang.co.kr.