Advances in Hass avocado irrigation scheduling under digital agriculture approach

Abstract

Under tropical conditions, Hass avocado irrigation is a controversial issue due to insufficient scientific evidence. The rapid progression of technological advances and its incorporation in agriculture have expanded options to improve the irrigation scheduling (IS) of Hass avocado. The concept featuring those technological advances in agriculture is digital agriculture (DA). Here, we present a mixture of well-known studies in the Hass avocado irrigation focused on proximal sensing (PS) technologies and recent studies emphasizing the potential of remote sensing (RS), and application technologies to schedule the irrigation. PS takes advantage of the soil or trees’ proximity to output reliable measurements with a high temporal resolution, while RS provides a broad set of spectral data in continuous and large areas that can be transformed into crop-related biophysical variables. Applications – a term grouping mobile (smartphone) apps, desktop programs, and web-based platforms – offers portability, high precision, and graphic visualization of variables obtained or estimated by sensors. Integrating RS and PS technologies through user-friendly applications can represent a suitable option to improve Hass avocado irrigation in developing countries. Our review is presented in the following sections: general introduction, DA approach definition, use of proximal sensing, use of remote sensing, and scheduling irrigation applications.