IIITM-K develops soil management app for coffee growers

TechnoparkToday.com(April, 2017) : Autonomous state government institute, the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K), has launched a web application that provides soil nutrient information and fertilizer recommendation for coffee plantation owners. Using this application, coffee growers can identify optimum levels of fertilizer use.

Developed by the IIITM-K’s Computational and Data Analytics, Geo-Infomatics and Agri-Informatics teams, the Kaapi Soil Health Management and Monitoring (KSHEMAM) application, available on www.indiacoffeesoils.net , is a GIS-enabledsupport system developed for the central Ministry of Commerce.

KSHEMAM, which was unveiled and dedicated to the nation by Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Smt Nirmala Sitharaman in Bengaluru recently, provides location specific soil nutrient information status, fertiliser recommendations and nutrient management advice through a standard web and GIS navigable digital map interface.

The GPS enabled soil sampling and nutrient analysis was done in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu by the National Bureau of Soil and Land Use Planning at the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, Bengaluru. The 13 thematic layers of respective soil fertility parameters were generated and geostatistical modelling was done. Dynamic Web Map services,such as Digital Globe, Google Map and OpenLayers, were integrated to facilitate thematic backdrops so as to locate the coffee plantations and grower information on the map interface.

Coffee growers can find their land by zooming in on the map, entering geographic coordinates or by selecting their administrative divisions (state->district->taluk->village) and check their soil property\nutrient status and fertiliser recommendation specific to the (geo)location. The spatial variation of individual nutrients can also be thematically visualised.

After the fertiliser recommendation is generated, the farmer can generate his fertiliser recommendation, nutrient advisory and soil health card in English, Kannada, Tamil or Malayalam. The information can also be accessed by searching Aadhar no, sample number or by grower name.

“The application is developed entirely using Open Source Technology,” said Ajith Kumar R of IIITM-K. “It has been developed with a responsive Design and tested for compatibility with any screen sizes of tablets and smartphones.”

Dr Rajasree M S, Director, IIITM-K opined that KSHEMAM is an excellent example where the diverse expertise of three institutions has been properly integrated to develop a useful information system for the nation that can be extended to several other crops