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The award winning Minder logs
important growing information to the PC. This information is then
displayed graphically so that trends etc can easily be spotted. It
also allows alarms to be set so that if anything goes wrong you will
soon be notified.
The base unit comes with a variety of sensors to monitor a wide
variety of parameters. The root zone sensors are conveniently
connected to the minder via a Root-Zone interface box. This can be
positioned at some distance from the Minder enabling the Minder to be
mounted in the isle, at the end of a row with the sensor
box
5
or 10m into the row where the sampling is possibly more representative
of conditions throughout the greenhouse. A CAT5 plug-in patch
cable is used to connect these items together.
The following sensors are
connected via a Rootzone interface box (supplied with a 5m patch cable)
- Root zone moisture
- Root zone temperature
- Run-off quantity
- Run-off EC
- Run-off pH
- Irrigation quantity
- Irrigation EC
- Irrigation pH
- Solar energy
{twin sensors for total energy (Joules/cm2) and
PAR (umol/m2/sec)}
The MINDER may also be used to monitor general environmental
conditions by connecting one of our standard aspirated enviro sensors.
Note that this may be connected in addition to OR instead of, the
Rootzone interface
- Air temperature
- Air humidity
- VPD (based on air temperature)
- CO2
- solar energy
{twin sensors for total
energy (Joules/cm2) and PAR (umol/m2/sec)}
Note that the solar sensor may be connected
to either the Rootzone interface OR the Enviro sensor but not both.
Readers familiar with our existing product range will realize that
this new MINDER is an enhanced combination of our old EPT run-off
monitor and enviro monitor together with a lot of new features.
Together, these measurements give a complete picture of what is
happening at one of the plants most important places; it's root zone
together with information on its irrigation requirements and
environmental conditions.
Important ratios
In addition to displaying the values read from the sensors,
important ratios are automatically calculated and displayed. For
example, the runoff to irrigation quantity is calculated and displayed
as a percentage. This is done for both the last complete
irrigation and the total for the day so far. The ratio of actual
irrigation quantity to the expected quantity (based on solar integral)
is also displayed. Temperature integral for the last period (eg 7
days) is also calculated together with the solar integral for the same
period. These figures can be sued to determine the expected yield.
All data is stored on the PC hard drive and is available for export to a
spreadsheet for further evaluation.
Advanced alarms
For many growers, time specific events are more important than simple
alarms based only on a minimum or maximum value. Knowing whether
"runoff" has occurred by 11:00am or whether EC has been
brought down by mid-day is more critical than simple numeric values.
The minder has the ability to set up complex alarms based on values or
ratios together with a holding time and a time-of-day period.
Furthermore, these alarm rules can be given various priority levels
allowing say a warning to be issued at 10:30am followed by an emergency
alarm at 11:00am if runoff has not been achieved.
General
Many growers pay a lot of attention to the EC and pH of the water that
is fed to the plant but little attention to what is actually in the root
zone and what is running out at the bottom. These latter
values are much more important than the input values. In fact, the
inputs should be adjusted to achieve appropriate run-off values.
By adjusting things like the watering start/stop times, watering
quantity, watering interval (solar trigger count) and the root-zone EC
it is possible to have considerable control over the plant and to
"steer" the crop to be more or less vegetative or generative.
This is often called "balancing" the crop. To do this
properly, the grower needs really good information and this is exactly
what the MINDER provides.
By monitoring solar energy as well as root zone parameters it is
possible to correlate this against irrigation volume and even set alarms
on this other very important ratio.
Hopefully, the run-off will be cleaned and re-used but if any is
allowed to escape into the environment - eg sprayed over pasture etc,
this monitoring system can be used to provide records of this.
All data, including the run-off ratio and irrigation quantity per
unit solar energy, are graphed on the PC providing vital information for
successful growing.
The Plant Minder can be configured to display European or
USA
date styles, EC or CF units, Deg C or Deg F
If your PC ever goes off-line the MINDER will continue to log data
for over a week. As soon as the PC is reconnected the locally
stored data is automatically up-loaded.
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