Testimonial
Vicente Goycoolea Y Felipe García
Grupo Hijuelas
Vicente Goycoolea and Felipe García of Grupo Hijuelas own eight farms in Chile's Lakes region. Their operations include 2,471 acres of hazelnuts, 123.55 acres of cherry trees, and a nursery. The orchards were planted between 2000 and 2021 and utilize a double-line drip irrigation system with a precipitation rate of 0.05 inches/h and 0.09 inches/h. The farms are equipped with DropControl for irrigation control, CDTEC Soil Moisture Sensors, and a climate monitoring system.
Hazelnut, cherry and nursery
1000 hectare
Riego por goteo, Control de riego, Sensores de Humedad y Monitoreo de clima.
Integrating CDTEC's sensors with WISECONN's DropControl technology allows us to both manage and control our irrigation systems and monitor environmental variables. Providing the correct irrigation to the crop's root system is the key to addressing water scarcity issues. We believe incorporating these technologies to achieve high productivity and maximum efficiency in water usage is the key to our success.
Through the use of soil moisture
sensors, we realized that the
irrigation was excessive and after
implementing the first changes,
a water saving of close to 25%
was achieved, also reducing the
use of fertilizers and energy.
This change was brought about
through a correct irrigation
strategy that provided us with a
better irrigated root zone bulb
with adjusted irrigation times.
This year we obtained the best
result, because we determined
the exact time and frequency of
irrigation without having
excesses or deficiencies, which is
essential.
The fruit orchards are just entering production, but we're already using technology to ensure the proper development of the trees. We believe in incorporating technology from the very first year of planting. A great example of this is with our Regina cherry trees, which yielded 15 tons per hectare this season with excellent fruit quality, all while using only 3,000 cubic meters of irrigation water per hectare.
