The cultivation of ornamental and horticultural crops needs elevated water amount. Since the problem of water shortage and water quality becomes more and more important year-by-year, new solutions have to be introduced to rationalize water consumption avoiding water shortage periods and water quality worsening (e.g. increasing water salinisation).

The usual practice of irrigation for container crops does not take into account real plant water requirements, entrusting the control to simple systems like timers. The detection of soil water potential in pots is one of the possible techniques to adapt water supply to real plant exigencies, reducing water consumption, without negative effects on the plants.

Design prototype developed in the VBA Esri ArcGIS 8.3 environment. (Bernardo Rapi, Maurizio Romani - 2005)

VISAVES is a software package that is based on the typical GIS technology, within which indices, mathematical and statistical models have been implemented, useful for providing elements of understanding the dynamics in progress and supporting decisions in the long, short and medium term.

The methodologies used within the system are continuously studied by the Biofuturo Team and can be transferred to different software environments (.Net, MATLAB, etc.), even for individual modules.

ECO.IDRI.FLOR Project

 HYDRO a prototype system for the automatic management of irrigation in the nursery gardening sector based on tensiometric and evaporimetric measurements, with the possibility of inserting the fractionation of the irrigation dose and time slots within which it is possible to activate the solenoid valves relating to the different sectors.