In the face of a growing global population and worsening climate conditions, improving water-use efficiency has become a critical challenge for agriculture. Ensuring crops thrive while using water wisely is vital for sustaining food production and supporting livelihoods. The EU-funded SenseFuture project has made significant strides in understanding how crop management practices affect soil water dynamics and how water delivery can be optimized, particularly in deep soil layers.
With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, SenseFuture has leveraged cutting-edge technology to monitor and optimize water-use efficiency in agriculture. The project employed a range of innovative sensing tools, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), advanced canopy sensors, and plant root imaging techniques, combined with AI-driven data analysis, to assess crop water use on a large scale.
By utilizing high-resolution sensors, SenseFuture has provided deeper insights into how various crop management practices influence water use at the field level. The data captured allowed researchers to assess plant water status in real time, enabling them to make more informed decisions about water allocation and crop management.
Eusun Han, SenseFuture Project Coordinator, explains, “The integration of advanced technologies has helped us gain a clearer understanding of the complex plant-soil interactions, demonstrating how novel agronomy practices can enhance water-use efficiency, particularly under challenging climate conditions.”
The research, conducted in both Australia and Denmark, also benefited from ground-based thermal sensors, which proved effective in extreme weather conditions, including overcast skies and heatwaves. Furthermore, AI-powered tools, such as the software RootPainter, have revolutionized the process of plant root phenotyping, enabling faster and more accurate measurements of root growth patterns, structure, and responses to environmental changes.
One groundbreaking discovery from SenseFuture is the benefit of reducing a plant’s canopy to help it endure drought. By removing part of the canopy, transpiration is minimized, conserving soil moisture during dry periods and ensuring enough water is available during critical growth stages, like grain filling. “This strategy optimizes water use timing, allowing crops to develop deeper roots despite canopy loss,” states Han.
Additionally, the project explored dual-purpose cropping, where crops are grown both for grazing and grain production. The success of this strategy, as demonstrated by SenseFuture, is highly dependent on seasonal factors like rainfall. In dry seasons, this approach provides farmers with two sources of income while safeguarding against crop failure by deferring water use. “Dual-purpose cropping is a powerful tool for improving resource-use efficiency and boosting crop resilience in drought-prone regions,” Han notes.
These strategies, while initially tested on wheat and canola in Australia, hold promise for broader applications in other cropping systems, including perennial crops in the northern hemisphere.
The advancements achieved through SenseFuture offer farmers valuable insights into plant behavior, especially in response to defoliation. These findings are set to refine dual-purpose cropping strategies and optimize grazing and planting timing. The project’s data-driven pipelines for plant phenotyping are helping to develop more resilient crops suited for future climates.
As the project moves forward, the next step is to refine predictive models for water-use efficiency, providing farmers with more accurate, real-time insights to make informed decisions on resource allocation. “With better predictions, we can offer actionable insights that help farmers increase yields while reducing risk, particularly in the face of climate change,” Han emphasizes.
By integrating diverse sensor data and AI-powered tools into decision-support systems, SenseFuture is helping to advance digital agriculture, allowing for more precise monitoring and management of farming systems. These innovations promise to drive sustainable, resilient agricultural practices and enhance farm operations worldwide.
