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Agriculture/
Specialized fields/
Row crops and grainRow crops, measured zone by zone.
Grain, oilseed and vegetable farms decide when to plant, water, spray and harvest from what the soil and the weather are doing in each field. Soil probes, field weather stations and satellite imagery report to one record the agronomist, the farm manager and the machinery all read.
Plan a deploymentHow it worksStation Builder- Industry
- Agriculture
- Measurements
- 6
- Sources cited
- 6
Agriculture · Row crops and grain
Every field is several fields
A field that looks uniform holds sands, clays and wet hollows that dry at different rates. Watering, feeding and spraying by the average wastes water and inputs in one corner and starves the crop in another. Measuring the soil and the weather in each zone lets the farm act on what the crop actually needs.
What is measured
Soil, weather, water use and vigour
Probes read soil water and temperature at several depths in each zone. A field weather station measures rain, wind, temperature, humidity and radiation to agrometeorological practice, from which daily crop water use is computed. Satellite imagery shows crop vigour across every field on each clear pass.
- Instruments
- Soil probes · Field weather station · Satellite imagery
The base node
Small endpoints, one careful gateway
Each endpoint reads its probes, checks for faults, signs the value and sends a short message, then sleeps. The gateway’s node collects every message, computes crop water use and spraying conditions, and raises frost, wind and disease alerts without waiting for the cloud.
Radio and links
Long range across the farm
LoRaWAN reaches many fields from one gateway on a high building, at very low power, so probes run for seasons on batteries. The gateway reaches the office over cellular, or over satellite where farms are beyond coverage. Machinery receives prescriptions through the farm software.
- Links
- LoRaWAN · Public cellular · Satellite
How it works
From a probe to an irrigation decision
A soil reading is signed by its endpoint and sent over LoRaWAN to the gateway, which adds the day’s crop water use and forwards both over cellular. The record compares soil water with crop demand by zone, and the irrigation schedule follows, with the readings behind it kept.
From order to operation · Order
Scope the fields and the decisions
The scope starts from the decisions: irrigation, nutrients, spraying, planting and harvest, and the records the farm must keep. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a plan of points by management zone, the gateway and coverage design, the integration with farm software and machinery and a price per point and per season.
Plan a deploymentFrom order to operation · Survey
Read the soil before placing a probe
Agronomists and crews walk each field with soil maps, yield maps and imagery to choose representative points in every zone. They check gateway coverage from the yard, find a weather station site clear of buildings and trees, and mark points away from tramlines and drains so machinery passes safely.
From order to operation · Permits
Land, data and tenancy
On owned land little is needed; on rented land the landlord agrees in writing. Data ownership and sharing with advisers, cooperatives and insurers are set out in the contract, and masts near roads or homes follow local planning rules. Every agreement is kept with the farm’s record.
From order to operation · Build
Build points for a season in the open
Probes, weather stations, endpoints and gateways are built, tested together and enrolled with their identities. Each endpoint is configured for its depths and reporting interval, each station for its sensors, and the gateway for the farm’s network. Every part is labelled with the field and zone it belongs to.
Open the Station BuilderFrom order to operation · Install
Install between operations
Crews install after drilling or planting, between machinery passes. Probes are set at their depths with good soil contact, the weather station is levelled and sited to practice, and the gateway is mounted high on a building or mast. Every point is photographed and located for the record.
From order to operation · Commission
Check against the soil and the reference
Each endpoint proves its identity and joins the gateway. Soil readings are checked against a hand sample, the weather station against a reference, and evapotranspiration is computed for the first day. Alerts are tested to the farm manager’s phone before the season starts.
From order to operation · Operate
Decide with the field in hand
The farm manager sees soil water by zone against crop demand, the spraying window by field and disease risk from leaf wetness. Irrigation is scheduled on evidence, prescriptions go to machinery and every decision is logged with the readings behind it, ready for nutrient and spraying records.
From order to operation · Maintain
Lift, check and reset each season
Probes are lifted before harvest or tillage and reinstalled after, weather sensors are cleaned and checked on schedule, and batteries are changed on plan. Every change is recorded against the point, so soil series stay comparable from one season to the next.
Book field servicesData products
For growers, operators and auditors
Farm managers and agronomists receive soil water by zone and disease risk; irrigators receive schedules; spray operators receive spraying windows and drift conditions; auditors and regulators receive nutrient and spraying records. Each product carries the readings and the siting behind it.
See the data productsEvidence
Records an auditor accepts
Every probe position, calibration check, alert and decision is signed and kept with its time and place. Weather follows agrometeorological practice, crop water use follows the FAO method, and nutrient and spraying records follow the rules that apply, so an adviser or auditor can check them.
- Drawn against
- FAO-56 · WMO-No. 134 · Directive 91/676/EEC · Directive 2009/128/EC
What you get
Agricultural field observatories
Soil moisture profiles, micro-weather and evapotranspiration with irrigation thresholds per field. Delivered as managed service and data licence, for growers, agribusiness, irrigation districts, crop insurers. Scale: Farm to region. Service levels are written as numbers you can measure on your own dashboard.
Talk to salesNext step
Plan row crops and grain with us
Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for row crops and grain. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.
Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio
01The place and its hazards
Where it runs, and what can go wrong.
Operating contextArable farms manage large fields with soils that vary within them. Planting, irrigation, nutrient and spraying decisions depend on soil water and temperature, on the weather in the field rather than at the nearest town, and on how the crop is growing. Machinery applies inputs by zone when the data supports it, and nutrient and spraying rules require records.
Hazards
- Drought stress caught too late to water
- Nutrient losses to water after heavy rain
- Spray drift in wind or temperature inversions
- Disease outbreaks favoured by leaf wetness and humidity
- Frost and hail at sensitive growth stages
02What must be measured
What, where, how often, and under which rules.
Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.
| Measurement | Where | Cadence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soil moisture and temperature | Probes at several depths in each management zone | Continuous, reported several times a day | 1 |
| Field weather | A station sited to agrometeorological practice on representative ground | Continuous, reported at short intervals | 23 |
| Reference evapotranspiration | Computed from the field station’s weather | Computed every day | 1 |
| Wind, temperature and humidity at spraying | The field station and portable masts near sensitive edges | Continuous during spraying windows | 4 |
| Nitrate leaching risk | Drainage and soil water below the root zone in vulnerable zones | After rain events and on the regulator’s schedule | 5 |
| Crop vigour | Every field, from satellite imagery | Each cloud-free pass | 6 |
03The observation stack
From one base unit to a network.
The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.
- 01
Base unit
A soil and weather point: probes and a field weather station read by a LoRaWAN endpoint that signs every value and buffers it.
Build a station → - 02
Site
A farm: points in each management zone, a gateway on a high building or mast and a cellular link to the office.
Plan a site → - 03
Fleet
Every farm of a cooperative or estate run as one fleet, with one calibration process and one record.
Managed offers → - 04
Network
Cooperatives, advisers, insurers and agencies exchange observations and alerts through open standards.
The open protocol →
- 01Soil probe
- 02Compact weather station
- 03LPWAN endpoint
- 04LoRaWAN gateway
- 05Cellular modem/router
- 06Solar array
- 07Pole
Radio and links
LoRaWAN
Long range at very low power: one gateway on a high building covers many fields, and probes run for seasons on their own batteries.
Radio and links
Public cellular
The gateway’s everyday path to the office and the cloud, where farm coverage allows.
Radio and links
Satellite
A backhaul for farms beyond cellular coverage, carrying the gateway’s small traffic.
Edge computeEndpoints check readings for spikes and sensor faults before sending; the gateway’s node computes daily evapotranspiration and spraying conditions and raises frost and wind alerts locally.
PowerProbes and endpoints run on long-life batteries; weather stations and gateways on small solar panels with batteries sized for overcast weeks.
04How it works
From the instrument to the product.
One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.
Row crops and grain: data path
– of 07
01 Instruments Measurement with sensor identity andcalibration 02 Field radio 03 Gateway 04 Backhaul 05 Site Consumer inbox deduplicates and applieseach record once into governed data 06 Data store Governed product through API, map orexport, correction-aware 07 Products OGC SensorThings APIISO 11783LoRaWAN 08 Power and structure Supplies 12 V DC to the field equipment 01 Soil probe SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 02 Compact weather station SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 03 LPWAN endpoint Analogue I/O · SDI-12 · RS-485 04 LoRaWAN gateway Ethernet · RF · GNSS antenna 05 Cellular modem/router Ethernet · USB · RS-232 Site MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B Governed data store Versioned, correction-aware Soil water by zone againstcrop demand Irrigation schedules Spraying windows and driftconditions Disease and frost alerts Nutrient and sprayingrecords 06 Solar array RS-485 07 Pole SDI-12 SDI-12 LoRaWAN Ethernet LTE/NR| Item | Equipment | Data ports | Protocols | Power in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Soil probeProbe for volumetric soil moisture, temperature and conductivity at one or more depths. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 02 | Compact weather stationAll-in-one or compact station for temperature, humidity, pressure, wind and rain at a site. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 03 | LPWAN endpointBattery-powered endpoint on LoRaWAN, NB-IoT or LTE-M that carries one or more sensors. | Analogue I/OSDI-12RS-485 | LoRaWAN, OMA LwM2M, CoAP | Internal battery, Energy harvesting |
| 04 | LoRaWAN gatewayMulti-channel LoRaWAN gateway that forwards uplinks to a network server and schedules downlinks within duty limits. | EthernetRFGNSS antenna | LoRaWAN, MQTT 5 | PoE, 12 V DC |
| 05 | Cellular modem/routerLTE or NR modem or router that uses a public carrier or private network as backhaul. | EthernetUSBRS-232 | 3GPP E-UTRA air interface, 3GPP NR air interface, OMA LwM2M | 12 V DC, PoE |
| 06 | Solar arrayPV modules with charge controller sized to the site’s load and climate. | RS-485 | Modbus | — |
| 07 | PoleUtility, street or dedicated pole with clamp positions. | — | — | — |
How it scales
01 Instruments Arbitrary qualified sensors and instruments whosemeasurements are ingested with calibration, units,geometry, time, custody and uncertainty. ×n 02 Node The minimum useful deployable unit: server, ruggedappliance, radio node, sensor gateway, satelliteterminal, AI, scientific, vehicle or virtual node. Node Node agent 03 Site The minimum independently operable localgovernance and failure domain: one or more nodesplus local network, identity, policy, evidence,storage, products and operator surfaces.SITE
Node Node Node ×n 04 Cluster An optional scale or specialisation domain forscheduling, shared storage, accelerators or datalocality.CLUSTER
×n 05 Fleet Coordinates plans, acknowledgements,convergence evidence, update campaigns andcorrection propagation across nodes and sites.FLEET
Fleet controller ×n 06 Federation An exchange of products, capabilities, events orwork across approved, independently administeredtrust domains, using explicit trust, policy,data-locality, version and correction contracts.TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
×n Verifier Applications Data in the field Telemetry Control Data upstream Control Data upstream Control Exchange Evidence Events Exchange- Data in the field
- MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B; connectors for LoRaWAN, OPC UA and instrument buses.
- Telemetry
- OpenTelemetry OTLP.
- Control
- TLS 1.3 with mutual authentication; protobuf messages over gRPC or HTTP/2.
- Data upstream
- At-least-once publication with repeat-safe keys over the control channel or NATS JetStream; QUIC MAY be used on lossy links.
- Evidence
- DSSE-signed in-toto statements; SLSA provenance; SCITT transparency receipts.
- Events
- Event envelopes mapped to CloudEvents 1.0; channels described in AsyncAPI 3.
- Exchange
- OpenAPI 3.1; the OGC API family; SensorThings; STAC; WIS 2.0.
05From order to operation
Every step, from the first call to a running site.
The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.
- 01 Order
Scope the fields and the decisions
The scope starts from the decisions: irrigation, nutrients, spraying, planting and harvest, and the records the farm must keep. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a plan of points by management zone, the gateway and coverage design, the integration with farm software and machinery and a price per point and per season. 5
- 02 Survey
Read the soil before placing a probe
Agronomists and crews walk each field with soil maps, yield maps and imagery to choose representative points in every zone. They check gateway coverage from the yard, find a weather station site clear of buildings and trees, and mark points away from tramlines and drains so machinery passes safely.
- 03 Permits
Land, data and tenancy
On owned land little is needed; on rented land the landlord agrees in writing. Data ownership and sharing with advisers, cooperatives and insurers are set out in the contract, and masts near roads or homes follow local planning rules. Every agreement is kept with the farm’s record.
- 04 Build
Build points for a season in the open
Probes, weather stations, endpoints and gateways are built, tested together and enrolled with their identities. Each endpoint is configured for its depths and reporting interval, each station for its sensors, and the gateway for the farm’s network. Every part is labelled with the field and zone it belongs to.
- 05 Install
Install between operations
Crews install after drilling or planting, between machinery passes. Probes are set at their depths with good soil contact, the weather station is levelled and sited to practice, and the gateway is mounted high on a building or mast. Every point is photographed and located for the record. 2
- 06 Commission
Check against the soil and the reference
Each endpoint proves its identity and joins the gateway. Soil readings are checked against a hand sample, the weather station against a reference, and evapotranspiration is computed for the first day. Alerts are tested to the farm manager’s phone before the season starts.
- 07 Operate
Decide with the field in hand
The farm manager sees soil water by zone against crop demand, the spraying window by field and disease risk from leaf wetness. Irrigation is scheduled on evidence, prescriptions go to machinery and every decision is logged with the readings behind it, ready for nutrient and spraying records. 14
- 08 Maintain
Lift, check and reset each season
Probes are lifted before harvest or tillage and reinstalled after, weather sensors are cleaned and checked on schedule, and batteries are changed on plan. Every change is recorded against the point, so soil series stay comparable from one season to the next.
06Data products and integration
What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.
Data products
- Soil water by zone against crop demandFarm managers and agronomists
- Irrigation schedulesIrrigators and farm managers
- Spraying windows and drift conditionsSpray operators and advisers
- Disease and frost alertsAgronomists and growers
- Nutrient and spraying recordsFarm managers, auditors and regulators
Integration
- Farm management softwareObservations and alerts are delivered through OGC SensorThings and the farm software’s own interfaces.
- MachineryZone prescriptions are exported in formats that ISO 11783 task controllers read.
- Advisers and cooperativesShared views per farm, with data shared only where the contract allows.
Exchanged through OGC SensorThings API, ISO 11783, LoRaWAN.
07Questions buyers ask
Before you scope it.
Who owns the data?
The farm. Sharing with advisers, cooperatives or insurers is set out in the contract and can be withdrawn.
Do probes get in the way of machinery?
Points are placed away from tramlines, and probes are lifted before tillage and harvest.
Can we use our existing weather station?
Yes, if it has a standard output. Its readings join the same record with their siting noted.
What if the farm has no cellular coverage?
The gateway uses a satellite backhaul instead; the probes and the record work the same way.
08Resources
The sources behind this page.
Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.
- 1Crop evapotranspiration: guidelines for computing crop water requirements (FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56)Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations · 1998
- 2Guide to Agricultural Meteorological Practices (WMO-No. 134)World Meteorological Organization · 2010
- 3Guide to Instruments and Methods of Observation (WMO-No. 8)World Meteorological Organization
- 4Directive 2009/128/EC on the sustainable use of pesticidesEuropean Union · 2009
- 5Council Directive 91/676/EEC: the Nitrates DirectiveEuropean Union · 1991
- 6Copernicus Sentinel-2 missionEuropean Space Agency
09Related
Use cases and solutions.
Use caseAgromet cooperative network
Compact weather stations and soil probes on farms, feeding irrigation, frost and disease models for a cooperative or an insurer.The full use case →Use caseState or provincial mesonet site
A full weather station on a solar-powered tower with soil sensors, one of a dense network run by a university.The full use case →SolutionAgricultural field observatories
Soil moisture profiles, micro-weather and evapotranspiration with irrigation thresholds per field.Solutions for agriculture →SolutionSensing as a Service
Observation networks designed, installed, operated and maintained for a monthly fee: weather, hydromet, air, seismic and environmental stations, with data delivered under a licence.Solutions for agriculture →SolutionEarth observation tasking, processing and change detection
SAR and optical acquisition planning, analysis-ready processing and change detection checked against field truth, delivered as STAC and COG.Solutions for agriculture →10Agriculture: specialized fields
Other fields of this industry.
Specialized fieldOrchards and vineyards
Frost watch at dawn, leaf wetness and disease risk, soil water for deficit irrigation and canopy cameras, on LoRaWAN across the blocks with alerts that wake the grower in time.The full field →Specialized fieldLivestock and dairy
Barn air and ammonia, heat stress, water and feed, animal welfare cameras and pasture water points, on a farm network that keeps the herd’s record and the emissions record in one place.The full field →Specialized fieldGreenhouses and controlled environment
Climate, carbon dioxide, substrate water and nutrient dosing, energy and outside weather for greenhouses and vertical farms, on the site network beside the climate computer, never in its way.The full field →Specialized fieldIrrigation districts and canals
Canal levels and flows, offtake deliveries, water quality, district weather and crop demand, on LoRaWAN along the canals and microwave to the district office, for fair and accountable sharing of water.The full field →Specialized fieldForestry and plantations
Fire watch from towers, forest weather and fire danger, sound for illegal logging, growth and carbon plots and satellite change, on LoRaWAN, microwave and satellite across the estate.The full field →Specialized fieldAquaculture
Dissolved oxygen, temperature and salinity at the pens, met-ocean conditions, feeding cameras and harmful algae watch for fish and shellfish farms, on cellular and satellite from the water.The full field →Specialized fieldRangeland and pastoralism
Rain, pasture growth, water points and herd movement across open range, with satellite forage maps and drought early warning, on LoRaWAN and satellite where no network reaches.The full field →Bring us the site.
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