Know already in March what the olive production forecast will be for the following autumn campaign. And thanks to this prediction, better management of the intermediate agronomic phases, also with an eye to the wallet. It's not science fiction, but the new frontier on which the University of Jaèn and a group of companies is working through a prototype which offers very interesting perspectives. For the moment, the territories of some of the main municipalities of Andalusia are involved: Jaén, Cordoba and Granada. According to the researchers, the prototype that has been created guarantees a estimation of olive production with an accuracy rate of between 80 and 90%.
As highlighted by this operational group, climatic instability, the high density of olive groves, as well as pests and diseases are factors that have a direct impact on agricultural production and which, in each campaign, generate uncertainty for olive growers, cooperatives olive groves and millers. The innovative technological system under development., according to the researchers, would be able to obtain a anticipation of the olive harvest, allowing you to take the correct strategic decisions e optimize resources in all stages of cultivation and marketing of olive oil. In short, a technological prototype capable of anticipating an estimate of the harvest starting in March, when the entire campaign will still have to be decided since the olive tree is in a phenological state of budding and the appearance of the first buds.
Precisely this anticipation for the month of March, as highlighted by the Spanish magazine Mercacei, represents the greatest innovation of this system, since, although technologies capable of anticipating harvests exist on the market, the vast majority are based on the measurement of the pollen level of the olives, therefore the forecast arrives in the months of May-June, when all the investments that the farmer or the cooperative have to make have already been made.
The model developed by this new operating group is based on artificial intelligence and precision algorithms. It is also a living system, capable of evolving, since its feedback with information from new campaigns will allow the generation of predictive models that are increasingly efficient and more suitable for each area studied.
But in addition to harvest forecasting, this technology will allow consultations on historical agricultural productions, to analyze the dynamic behavior of the crop over time. Currently, the project focuses precisely on the incorporation of historical data from satellite monitoring of crops. In addition, work is being done to improve the tool so that it is also able to predict olive yields not just for localities, but for specific farms.
Marcaceous reports that Francisco Ramón Feito, professor at the University of Jaén and technical coordinator of the project, underlined how a selection of 15 pilot farms (five in Jaén, five in Córdoba and five in Granada) with which a data collection agreement has been concluded. In this context, regular flights are carried out with drones equipped with thermal and multispectral sensors. The goal is teach the algorithm with the obtained variables (through visual analysis, foliar analysis and olive grove field analysis) for early detection of the crop at the plot level. This project, scheduled for completion in June 2024, is funded through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and co-financed by the Andalusian Ministry of Agriculture.
