SmartOliveGrove: NEUROPUBLIC’s smart farming services for improved olive production in Western Greece

NEUROPUBLIC is the coordinator of the SmartOliveGrove project, which aims at improving olive production in the area of Aetoloakarnania, Western Greece. In the context of SmartOliveGrove, NEUROPUBLIC is working closely with the Laboratory of Plant Production of the University of Patras towards the design and develop the necessary scientific models needed by the smart farming services for irrigation and crop protection of Kalamata type olives.

The aim of this effort is to allow the rationalized and precise management of inputs, such as irrigation water and crop protection applications, which will eventually lead to reduced olive production costs and improvement of its qualitative characteristics. At the same time, the smart farming services will contribute to the reduction of the environmental impact of the olive production, such us reduced use of irrigation water and pesticides.

The services will be applied, tested and validated at olive groves of the Agricultural Cooperative of Mesolonghi-Nafpaktia “Enosi” and the Agricultural Cooperative of Kainourgio, both of which are members of the SmartOliveGrove consortium.

The necessary data acquisition infrastructure has been set up, consisting of a number of NEUROPUBLIC’s telemetric agrometeological stations, specialized soil sensors and the digital tools allowing agronomists and farmers to record data from the farm in an easy and efficient way. The scientific models for irrigation and crop protection are fed with this data and eventually lead to the production of smart farming advice for these two important cultivation activities.  

The context

The area of Aetoloakarnania produces about 50% of Kalamata type olives in Greece. The adoption of smart farming services in this specific case is expected to help the Greek production of olives as a whole, improving the qualitative characteristics of Kalamata type olives and its products.

SmartOliveGrove is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in the context of the Regional Operational Programme «Western Greece 2014-2020» of the National Strategic Reference Framework 2014-2020 (Project Code: ΔΕΡ6-0021056).