Precision agriculture combines soil sensors, drone imagery and simple crop models to decide where and how much to irrigate or fertilize, instead of treating a whole field the same way.
Crop health index (0–1):
H = clamp(0.15 + 0.55·moisture + 0.35·nutrients − 0.10·stress, 0, 1)
Predicted yield:
Yield(t/ha) = Y_max · H^1.15 (Y_max ≈ 9.5 t/ha)
Real drones estimate this from reflectance:
NDVI = (NIR − Red) / (NIR + Red) (−1..1, higher = healthier canopy)
Water use:
Water(L/day) = Area(m²) · moisture · 4 L/m²/day
- Farm mode — switches between an open field with 144 plants and a 4-shelf vertical farm using nutrient-solution flow instead of soil irrigation.
- Irrigation — soil moisture in Field mode, nutrient-solution flow rate in Vertical Farm mode; raises the health index and crop colour toward green.
- Fertilizer — nutrient concentration; combines with irrigation in the health formula above.
- IoT Sensors — toggles soil-sensor towers with live blinking status LEDs, the kind precision-ag platforms use to log moisture and temperature in real time.
- Drone NDVI Scan — flies a quadcopter in a boustrophedon (back-and-forth) survey pattern, progressively revealing a red-yellow-green NDVI health overlay over the field.
Real farms use exactly this loop — sensor + drone data feeding a yield model — to cut water and fertilizer use while protecting yield, and vertical farms push it further by controlling every input indoors.