Hi, does anyone knows any real Use Case / Applications of LoRa / TTN in Agriculture?
Well. I can think of a few things:
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Put a sensor in the ground near the roots of a plant. You can measure several things there: water, temperature soil quality, ph values.
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measure the light intensity (lux) on the field in several places to see the impact and maybe even better calculate how they are growing.(the same counts for the first one, but this sensor needs to be up higher).
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With the Lab-on-a-chip technology the usecases are numerous! Everything that needs to be monitored or delivers (open) data for further advancement can continuously send it’s data over TTN and be used.
@flavio just a passing thought, it would be interesting to see what computer vision could do for monitoring growth rates, and plotting growth performance over time… I 'm pretty sure over a few seasons of different yields you could correlate different inputs and find out exactly what works best and why for high yields and what causes lower yields specifically. Currently everything would be on a best guess basis? But these computer vision sensors could also detect birds and other pests and emit ultrasonic or audible sound to specific types (pests) to move them along, and others which are beneficial are not disturbed. (like high tech scarecrows).
There is an other thread that shows a system that monitors drinking water. That seems the most realistic use case I have seen here. Be aware that since long there is quite a bit of remote sensing in farming in the industrialised world.
So I think it is better to first see what is happening already, and next find out what TTN could do to help reduce cost. The farmers around here do get 17.2 cents for 1 kg of wheat…
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" So I think it is better to first see what is happening already, and next find out what TTN could do to help reduce cost. " great advice from @pz1 . Perhaps the greater expose to that is; all these new ideas and new capabilities that are being developed are quite naturally …coming from developers, but if you really dive into an industry from a business perspective then you see a leveled ‘battlefield’ where the is a rare chance to overcome some big industry challenges and pain points. Now you can nail a golden opportunity that will fuel all your future development ambitions. But there is often a big difference in looking at a solution from a technical standpoint and looking at it from an industry how-to perspective.
@pz1 Great example, I noticed it also on this forum and suggested to move it o this topic. @Brendan I did not want to suggest you should deduce use cases from the available technology, but indeed try to imagine how existing ones can be better supported and extended once a low cost omni-available network has arrived with the possibility to use low energy consuming wireless sensors.
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Well at the moment I am working with 30MHz to build smart monitoring systems. Not LoRaWAN yet but maybe in the near future if it all works out!
Thanks for all the examples folks. I know of the potential of LoRa and TTN in the agriculture but I am looking for real cases or people that is already working in real applications to use as reference to other people and companies that are planing to do the same in Brazil.
Thanks!
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Well since LoRA is a direct competitor of technologies as sigfox, zigbee etc you should look there what is possible now. LoRa is just to new to have real definite products.
I only know some backyard pilots like KPN is doing smart parkingmeters, shipping container sensors. Glimworm has a ibeacon mile operating on LoRa. Etc.
Flavio look up libelium waspmoat smart agriculture. They have ag hardware with lora as well as other wireless protocols. They have nice equipment but it’s not cheap.
http://www.libelium.com/libeliumworld/agriculture/
If anyone wants to work on open hardware agricultural sensor connected with Lora contact me.
refugia@zoho.com
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I’m interested in this use case (I live on a smallholding)
I’ve been chatting to Mike at http://farmos.org/ and he’s interested in integrating some Things Network devices into his platform.
A soil moisture & temp sensor on solar would be a great first step IMHO
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Are you using any sensors now?
Mike is great. His is the most unique use of drupal I’ve seen. OPK needs more sensor drivers. I want to make a an OPK script for this moister sensor when they come in the mail. It should be good for 4" propagation pots or annual row crops. I’ve seen various projects use vegitronics for garden scale but not on farms.
http://vegetronix.com/Products/VH400/
There are other people working on open hardware moister sensor motes with gypsum block sensors. That would be more appropriate for perennial crops.
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Only my eyes & fingers… Kind of a joke comment, but actually there’s a lot to be said for going out and having a look 
More seriously it starts to get more interesting if you can set irrigation to run based on actual soil moisture rather than a simple timer. Like https://edyn.com/ but opensource.
I hope you are tasting the soil too. I’m a big advocate of observation intensive farming, especially when it comes to agriculture’s entomological aspects.
It’s all about getting real time adaptive capabilities for farm systems. Basing irrigation duration eT models ends up wasting a lot of water.
Someone at my hackerspace showed me that project but I really don’t think can work. I’ve never seen one but I am very sceptical. There are many professional farm iOt companies.
Frost control would help in a lot climates. What hardiness zone are you in Sam?
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Vinduino, a wine grower’s water saving project
Monitoring soil moisture at different depths to determine when to irrigate, and - more importantly - how much water is needed. Save 25%!
[Vinduino project ] (https://hackaday.io/project/6444-vinduino-a-wine-growers-water-saving-project)
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@flavio and @dataino.it, I just recently joined the things network and have an interest in using iot in agriculture. I can see the potential for agriculture and farming in south east asia. Have you already started your project? How do I join?
Hey @rlinardi, i am rish here from TTN, feel free to send me an email: community@thethingsnetwork.org and will get you started 
Hi, where do you live? Do you have a background in technology or agriculture?
This is one interesting use case in agriculture:
I wonder if any of the team members of the SentriFarm have joined this forum to share with us their experience and lessons learned in this project.