Using wireless sensor networks to determine pollination readiness in palm oil plantation

Abstract

The Wireless Sensors Network (WSN) is nowadays widely used to build decision support systems to solve many real-world problems. One of the most interesting fields having an increasing need of decision support systems is agricultural environment monitoring. Agricultural environment monitoring has become an important field of control and protection, providing real-time system and control communication with the physical world. An intelligent and smart WSN system can collect and process large amount of data from the beginning of the monitoring and manage air quality, soil conditions, to weather situations. Wireless sensors are used in a palm oil plantation to monitor the humidity, temperature and other parameters of a mother palm to find the best time to start a controlled pollination process. Pollination is the process of transferring pollen from the male reproductive organ to the female reproductive organ of a flower. The inaccuracy in determining pollination readiness of the oil palm flower could potentially cause a detrimental effect on the palm oil industry in the long run.