CO2 Monitoring of Grain Stored in Silobag Through a Web Application

RICARDO BARTOSIK; LEANDRO CARDOSO; JUAN ALBINO; PATRIZIA BUSATO

Torino

Conferencia; EFITA WCCA CIGR 2013 - Sustainable Agriculture through ICT Innovation; 2013

EFITA-WCCA-CIGR-Torino University

Silobags technology is extensively used in many countries for storing dry grains. In thelast years, 35 to 40 million tons of grains were stored with this technology in Argentina.Many farming operations have silobags scattered through different regions, separatedseveral kilometers apart that create difficulties for a physical examination of the bagsand the quality of the grain.A technology was developed in which each silobag is tagged with a RFID card. Aportable CO2 meter with a RF reader is used. The meter is first activated with the RFIDof the bag, and a number of measurements of CO2 are made along the 60 m of the bags.A service was implemented to perform the monitoring of the bags every two to fourweeks. The information is transferred to a server via GPRS technology and analyzed.The owner of the bags can log-in in a web site and check the storage risk of the bagsbeing monitored with this technology, regardless the location of the bag. In addition tothat, if a bag reaches a critical CO2 value, an alarm is sent to the owner via e-mail, fax,or smt.This technology is currently used in more than 10000 bags in Argentina and neighborcountries