One challenge facing researchers is gathering the data, finding ways to access it quickly and making valuable information available for growers, breeders and researchers alike.
Agricultural technology is quickly becoming more advanced and detailed, increasing the ability to gather data from various sources. One challenge facing researchers is gathering the data, finding ways to access it quickly and making valuable information available for growers, breeders and researchers alike.
NDSU ag technology program manager Aaron Reinholz sees the potential of such systems.
“Precision Agriculture technologies have been available and in use already for years, but advances in technology are enabling a far greater resolution in management practices,” Reinholz said. “Conceptually, one could envision managing each plant in a field individually. In practice, incremental steps are being made towards this concept through Internet of Things technologies and other precision management tools being developed for crop and livestock operations.”
“Integrating IoT technologies into agriculture is greatly enhancing efficiency and precision across the entire food production system,” said Frank Casey, North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station associate director. “A growing array of connected devices — monitoring everything from plant health and soil conditions to livestock behavior — are becoming increasingly accessible and affordable. These tools range from simple solutions like tracking diesel fuel levels or monitoring remote cattle water tanks to advanced systems that detect subtle behavioral changes signaling animal health issues.
“It’s no longer just your thermostat connected to Wi-Fi; it’s nearly every asset on the farm that can be monitored. Internet of Things technologies are becoming the eyes and ears of modern agriculture, and our researchers are harnessing them to drive research outcomes and develop practical solutions that directly support our producers and stakeholders.”
The acceleration of ag tech, which uses IoT technology heavily, is one of the priorities of NDSU’s Food, Energy and Water Security initiative. IoT is a network of physical devices, vehicles and other physical objects embedded with sensors and software that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the internet.
The FEWS initiative addresses many key issues facing food, energy and water resources today, strongly emphasizing technology, including areas led by NDSU researchers such as autonomous systems, sensors, high-throughput data systems, agriculture data security, precision agriculture and predictive crop performance.
"The IoT technologies in agriculture are one of the promising drivers for feeding the world’s ever-growing population with limited resources. IoT sensors generate near-real-time crop/soil health data and help monitor livestock. This enables timely and informed decision making, which minimizes losses and improves the efficiency of agricultural operations,” said Joshua Dotto, IoT Systems research engineer for NDSU Agricultural Data Analytics.
One significant challenge of implementing IoT in agriculture has been access to wireless connectivity needed to transmit data from remote farms and ranches to databases that run in the cloud.
The NDSU Agricultural Data Analytics Team has worked collaboratively with Grand Farm, an initiative created to solve agriculture's most crucial problems. Grand Farm’s Innovation Campus is located near Casselton, North Dakota. The NDSU team is utilizing Grand Farm’s sensor sandbox to test initial prototype IoT projects using Long Range Wide Area Network 5G cellular technology, or the fifth-generation mobile network for cellular technology, which is provided for the project by Dakota Carrier Network.
DCN is owned by 13 independent rural broadband service providers across North Dakota. DCN has built a technology system that produces data for precision ag researchers and others. DCN’s existing network can reach additional locations such as commercial farms, extension centers or anywhere in the state and DCN’s primary aim is to eventually utilize that network to cover every acre of the state. DCN is preparing users for automation; the IoT management platform allows users to develop rules to make wise decisions.
“Agriculture is becoming more intertwined with technology through sensors and self-driving automation and all of that requires connectivity to the furthest reaches of the farm,” said Seth Arndorfer, CEO of DCN. “The benefits of precision ag reach well beyond enhancing productivity. Advancements in precision ag will broadly affect North Dakota’s economic development, bringing new, innovative organizations and well-established international companies to our state.
“The stakes are high, and the investment is, too. That’s why no one could do this alone. To succeed, the team had to include everyone from private industry to the state, researchers to producers, if we were going to lay a strong foundation. This ecosystem has already produced results and is well-positioned for the future.”
“As of December 2024, the first of these sensor networks at NDSU became operational at the Hettinger Research Extension Center. Thus far, we’ve been able to complete an initial performance validation on the two technologies,” Reinholz said. “The range at which we’ve been able to place sensors from the wireless communication tower has exceeded expectations.”
The project is a cooperative effort with the USDA ARS Great Plains Research Laboratory in Mandan and the Grand Farm. The 5G system is a private network, which improves data security, according to Reinholz.
“Only devices authenticated to that network can connect, so we have full control over the devices and data,” he said.
LoRaWAN is a technology that production. LoRaWAN uses long-range and lower-power wireless technology to communicate between LoRaWAN gateways and remote nodes. In most cases, the nodes are small, battery-operated sensor devices. For example, LoRaWAN technology could be used to monitor water levels in stock tanks in remote pastures. Alerts can be triggered on preset thresholds, and the data can be viewed on smart devices or computer applications.
“We’re trying to enable low-cost and easy-to-use sensors that farmers can deploy on reliable and affordable wireless networks to provide real-time access to that data,” Reinholz said. “IoT sensors have been widely adopted in many industry sectors. We are working to overcome barriers that have prevented that same level of adoption in agriculture.”
Sensors in Action
NDSU electrical and computer engineering department chair Ben Braaten is tackling some challenges in agriculture through his work with electromagnetic sensors with sugar beets and honeybees. There are indicators in a sugar beet pile that can show if a portion of it is beginning to spoil, which include temperature fluctuations, changes in the shape of the pile, gases emitted from a particular region of the pile and changes in the electrical properties of the pile.
Using machine learning, NDSU is partnering with Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative in Wahpeton, North Dakota, and the USDA Fargo site to build technology that would indicate to growers what is causing the spoilage.
“Our team is working closely with personnel from those two agencies to develop technology that can measure these indicators and use machine learning to inform producers of this spoilage, allowing for actions to be taken to minimize further loss,” Braaten said.
Another area of research is focusing on the populations of bee colonies. North Dakota is the top honey-producing state in the nation, having produced 38.3 million pounds of honey in 2023, according to the USDA. Bees are also responsible for pollinating more than 100 crops in the U.S. But bee colonies facing obstacles to maintaining their numbers, including habitat loss, invasive pests, nutrition and pesticides.
Braaten’s team is working with the USDA to assess the environments near honey bee colonies and during transportation.
“The team is using ultra-wideband radar to explore how electromagnetic fields can measure the amount of honey production in a hive,” Braaten said. “Discrete sensors measuring temperature, humidity and air pressure are being developed to determine environmental stress around bee colonies during transportation. We are also developing machine learning-based software to interpret this data and present it in a manner that is useful for North Dakota’s honey producers.”
Sensor Data
The NDSU team is working with USDA partners at the Agroecosystem Management Research Unit in Nebraska on measurement and monitoring data innovations to use them in those capacities.
“The goal is to advance our research data collection and analytical capabilities for both NDSU and USDA-ARS to provide more efficient, standardized workflows,” Reinholz said.” One focus of the current project is tracking data streams from field-deployed sensors and identifying anomalies in the data. We’re working on innovative ways to detect and resolve these anomalies in an automated process.”
A second focus is to evaluate the performance of lower-cost sensors, which understandably differs from research-grade equipment. But Reinholz points out that they might be of good use.
“We need to understand the capability of low-cost sensors and how they can be applied in different applications,” he said. “There is a tradeoff between cost and performance that needs to be considered, such that in-field sensors provide farmers and ranchers useful and accurate information at an affordable price.”
The NDSU Food, Energy and Water Security initiative projects receive funding from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
