iGUESSmed
Innovative Greenhouse Support System in the Mediterranean Region
efficient fertigation and pest management through IoT based climate control
What is iGUESSmed
iGUESSmed is a PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) project, relates to the Call: Section 1 – Farming Systems 2019 and belongs to the IA – Topic 1.2.2: “Sustainability and competitiveness of Mediterranean greenhouse and intensive horticulture”
iGUESSmed supports the transition toward innovative, sustainable and competitive Mediterranean horticultural greenhouses by developing, validating and transferring a pioneering Decision Support System (DSS) for the MED greenhouses, which is able to:
REDUCE NUTRIENT LEAKAGE into sub-surface and groundwaters by optimizing the fertigation management (both irrigation and fertilization) under low quality water conditions;
REDUCE THE USAGE OF CHEMICALS thanks to a sustainable and integrated pests and diseases control;
INCREASE THE PRODUCTIVITY thanks to an improved and cost-effective efficiency of climatic control procedures, introducing specific low-cost solutions to apply to pre-existent greenhouse structures
The project will be carried out on tomato as reference crop, in soil and soilless culture in low-tech greenhouses typical of the Mediterranean region, by applying participatory and integrated interdisciplinary toolkit of novel and emerging technologies such as sensor technology, IoT, advanced agronomic management, simulation models and self-calibrating mathematical algorithms.
The project started in APRIL 2020 and has an extension of 4 years.
The iGUESSmed consortium is comprised by 4 of the most important countries in Med-area as regards the greenhouse tomato cultivation, 2 European (Italy and Spain) and 2 non-EU (Turkey and Tunisia). There are 7 entities from the 2 European countries and 2 entities from 2 non-EU countries, from which 1 very small company, 1 SME, 1 big company, 1 non-profit foundation, and 5 RTDs.
iGUESSmed for you
high quality tomatoes, with low environmental impact
For agriculture
The adoption of efficient fertigation strategies and eco-friendly integrated pest management practices will reduce production costs by an increase of productivity, but also by the use of the available resources (saline waters) and the overall reduction of inputs (water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides), and will improve productivity, in terms of quantity and quality, leading to higher profits and adding an extra value to the products (healthier and more environmental friendly). Consumers will get healthier, higher quality vegetables.
For the environment
The use of chemicals and water will be reduced, and, in some cases, low quality waters could be used, saving the use of conventional waters for irrigation, that is in most cases a precious and limiting resource for the Mediterranean countries. Farm water and carbon footprint will be reduced, contributing to the EU 2020 strategy, in the no-so-distant future to reduce CO2 emissions in the world under conditions of climate change. All companies involved in the vegetable greenhouse production will grow food in a more sustainable way, with increased productivity and marketability, keeping the population in rural areas and improving the competitiveness of the greenhouses sector.
For the research
This project is of major relevance for scientific reasons, since it will provide through multiple physiological and environmental components, the required data sets to update, calibrate and validate process-based model of ETc, fertigation management, IPM and IDM. This project involves also PhD students, Post Doc and young researchers, that will gain experience and training in the new technologies and techniques.
iGUESSmed project is part of the PRIMA Programme supported by the European Union.
The PRIMA programme is supported under Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.
