Coffee growers can now check soil property and nutrient status and generate a fertiliser recommendation specific to the (geo)location using a customised application. The Computational and Data Analytics, Geo-Infomatics and Agri-Informatics teams of the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IITM-K) have developed the Kaapi Soil Health Management and Monitoring (Kshemam) app.

Open source design

“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 the screen sizes of tablets and smartphones.”

IITM-K Director Rajasree MS said this was an excellent example of the integration of the diverse expertise of teams to develop a useful information system that can be extended to other crops.

Available on www.indiacoffeesoils.net, the app is a GIS-enabled support system developed for the Union Ministry of Commerce. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, dedicated it to the nation recently.

The app provides location-specific soil nutrient information status, fertiliser recommendations and nutrient management advice through a 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.

Thirteen 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 coffee plantations and grower information on the map interface.

Coffee growers can find their land by zooming in on the map, entering the geographic coordinates or by selecting their administrative divisions (State, district, taluk, village).

After the fertiliser recommendation is generated, the farmer can generate the nutrient advisory and soil health card in English, Kannada, Tamil or Malayalam. The information can also be accessed by searching on an Aadhaar number, sample number or by the grower’s name.

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