We enable the access to experimentation infrastructures to test and to validate high potential digital innovations for the products, processes or business models of organisations in the agricultural sector. These technologies have been validated and they are fully operational in each of their working contexts.

Available technologies for demonstration:

TA01 - Farming guidance systems and Tasks Automation of the fields

TA02 - Documentation and harvest weighing systems on harvesting machines.

TA03 - Ramp-height control system for the application of liquid or solid chemicals.

TA04 - Slurry Control, scheduling distribution flow and mapping technology

TA05 - Harvester production and humidity mapping technology

TA06 - Automatic dose mapping technology

TA07 – Greenhouse climate control

TA08 - Climatic chamber

TA09 – Electronic irrigation programmer

TA10 – Hive monitoring system

TA11 – IoT digital pest management system

TA12 – Automatic system for the control of water resources for irrigation purposes

We enable the access to experimentation infrastructures to test and to validate high potential digital innovations for the products, processes or business models of organisations in the livestock sector. These technologies have been validated and they are fully operational in each of their working contexts.

Available technologies for demonstration:

TG01 – Farming control and monitoring systems

TG02 – Traceability of animals through blockchain

TG03 – Digital genealogical book

TG04 – Big Data system for farming performance optimisation

TG05 – Automatic system for opening and closing poultry houses on domestic farms

We enable the access to experimentation infrastructures to test and to validate high potential digital innovations for the products, processes or business models of organisations in the forestry sector. These technologies have been validated and they are fully operational in each of their working contexts.

Available technologies for demonstration:

TF01 - Blockchain-based timber supply digital system.

TF02 – Forest plantation monitoring systems.

TF03 - Environmental condition monitoring systems for non-timber forest product production.

TF04 - Advanced environmental information analysis system.

TF05 – Invasive fauna control system

TF06 – Digitisation of processes in the woodworking laboratory and workshop

This service consists of a permanent technology watch task, through which, useful digital technologies for entities in the primary sector, are monitored at any moment. Therefore, we select the appropriate information channels (either from the DIH itself or from external sources as well), they are systematically tracked by selecting the updates in terms of available technologies and applying different (level of maturity, cost/benefit balance, technical requirements, etc.) to select them according to how they fit in with the needs of the entities requesting this service. The aim is to detect opportunities and threats, as well as to identify emerging technologies and technological discontinuities (disruptive or breakthrough innovations) at an early stage. Demanding entities are regularly informed of this catalogue of technologies updates.
The provision of this service consists, based on the technological surveillance previously described, in the digital diagnosis for entities in the agricultural, livestock, forestry and environmental sectors. A needs analysis and assessment of the state of digitalisation is carried out, thus evaluating the maturity of the different processes and digital assets of the organisation. The contribution of digital media to the development of the organisation in accordance with its vision, mission and values is also tested.

.

Digital transformation processes are unstoppable in many areas of production, including primary production, forestry and environmental management of the territory. However, just as in the industrial sphere it is adapting rapidly, its transfer to other productive spheres associated with the rural environment faces major structural problems: the dispersion of the population, the lack of information and telecommunications infrastructures, the ageing of the population, the slow incorporation of young entrepreneurs, the narrow profit margins of many farms, the management of volunteers in many environmental organisations, the lack of technological unification in service providers, etc. These factors hinder the transformation of the agricultural, forestry and environmental environment and DIH-LEAF aims to act with mentoring work that will lead the digital transformation of people, companies and organisations.

Advice on the implementation of digital technologies for different production and organisational processes (stock control, invoicing, personnel control in distributed environments, etc.) all of it with the aim of increasing the organisation's competitiveness. Based on previous technological surveillance, an analysis of each organisation and specific project is carried out to determine the optimal enabling technologies, together with possible suppliers, trying to reduce the risks for the organisation itself. Optionally, we accompany the organisation by supervising the execution of the project, from start-up to full implementation.

Crop monitoring by tracking soil water status using moisture and potential probes, collecting environmental parameters in automated agro-meteorological stations, quantifying irrigation use and efficiency and tracking plant physiological development, they are all advanced tools for precision agriculture. Their large-scale implementation in the agricultural sector requires a previous verification and modelling of crop response in demonstration trial fields..

This service consists of the application of bioinformatics tools for studies under the One-Health perspective in the primary sector. A taxonomic and functional analysis of microbial communities is developed through the following steps:

-Experimental design

-Sampling and purification of nucleic acids

-Sequencing of genomic material (NGS) (16S/18S/metagenomic analysis)

-Filtering, assembly and gene annotation

-Identification and compositional and functional analysis of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial communities.

The main objective focuses on the analysis of microbial communities to determine the health of soil, crop and/or animal diseases and to help decision-making to improve the environmental quality and the resilience of different production and environmental systems.

Regarding to pests, insect recognition and insect counting, it is carried out in drop traps or in trapping systems to monitor the progress of the pest. For automatic species recognition, machine vision systems are used to capture and process thermal images that are analysed to measure the heat irradiance emitted by some species. In addition to detecting the presence of animals, a classification of them is possible, allowing differentiation between species.

It is well known that areas where livestock are housed can be hostile environments as far as standard gas detection solutions are concerned. The climate and gaseous composition of the atmosphere in livestock facilities influences human well-being and health, as well as in the livestock - respiratory, digestive and behavioural disorders are more likely to occur in facilities where environmental conditions are not within the parameters set by current standards.

By combining IoT technology with livestock husbandry, we can monitor and adjust the livestock rearing environment in real time to achieve high performance and greatly reduce labour costs.

By controling the environment of livestock farms, we can efficiently and digitally monitor the breeding process.

The service consists of the conception, deployment and validation of intelligent systems capable of carrying out predictions in the agricultural sector: irrigation recommendations, determination of crop conditions, etc.

It is possible to determine the real irrigation needs for certain crops, based on meteorological information, soil condition and plant data, all collected and stored in a database. Plant needs are determined by the high nutrient and water requirements of some crops during certain phases of their vegetative cycle.

It is assumed that irrigation needs depend on the needs of the crop at each moment and the effective rainfall.
Through the use of Artificial Intelligence algorithms, the most accurate predictions are calculated in order to know the irrigation needs in advance and thus, to be able to carry out the appropriate supplies and management.

Application of the methodology and use of digital tools (software, databases, etc.) for Life Cycle Analysis / Cost Cycle Analysis / Social Life Cycle Analysis, for the evaluation of the overall sustainability (environmental, economic and social) of products and processes related to the primary sector. The University of Burgos offers a complete analysis of agricultural, livestock, forestry and environmental products and processes, and then it processes the information and provides an advisory report derived from the above analyses. This report will include the critical points of the examined system as well as strategies for improving the environmental, economic and social results.

Collaborative laboratories and citizen science, thanks to the use of applications and digital platforms that control and monitor the ecological state of ecosystems, represent an innovative strategy to involve different groups and people, with or without previous knowledge, in the conservation of nature and the optimal management of natural resources, reaching through a technological way, quality data with great environmental, training and educational utility.

Thereby, this use will be promoted among students, teachers, volunteers, non-governmental organisations, companies, public and private institutions, etc., of digital platforms and/or apps and/or similar tools that evaluate the state of conservation of different ecosystems or the degree of evolution of different environmental problems, for example, always with the aim of co-creative generation of series of conservation recommendations and future lines of research and development of solutions.

Management and exploitation of forest resources lacks digitalisation processes, both in the generation and processing of information and in the control of product traceability. The forestry industry, both for timber and non-timber products, requires the digitalisation of these processes. To this end, a solution is offered for experimenting with traceability systems associated with the design of IT solutions that guarantee this system, all these based on cloud computing and blockchain technology.

The forestry sector needs to advance in the automation of in-situ information generation, through technology based on sensor technology and the Internet of Things. There are many events that occur in the natural environment that can be monitored, from the behaviour of a forest plantation, to the dynamics of extensive livestock, transit of people and animals, etc.  It is important to generate solutions for owners and managers to get acquainted with low-cost sensor systems and to integrate this information into their daily management.
 

Remote sensing has evolved in recent years turning out to be a direct source of information for large-scale forest and agricultural harvesting management. The development of services and products that exploit this information, in many cases free of charge, can serve as a test for farms. Copernicus, the European Commission's programme, has revolutionised the access to data, making it easier for the end user in its use and management.

The proliferation and use of applications on mobile devices is facilitating the use of technical work applications on these terminals without a complicated learning curve for the user. Thus, thanks to the GPS chip, photography and data are becoming essential devices for data collection in the field for forestry and agricultural operations. Multi-platform systems allow these devices to collect data without the need for coverage and synchronise with a server when retrieved, thus providing a robust office-field analysis system. The integration of the systems with official data services such as land registry or SIGPAC makes much easier the management of these farms.

In addition, we can provide advice on the use of any other digital solutions related to the management of forestry territories..

The control of the presence and the pressure on the territory is an important need in agriculture and forestry. The development of perimeter controls is more suited to urban and industrial environments. However, there are sensor-based control and passage techniques that can be adapted to open and large environments. Intelligent object detection (object mining) and automatic learning (machine learning) allow software to be trained to detect possible events, and thus to develop applications with an alert system for what the application can interpret as an important event.

Agricultural and forestry activity generates a vast amount of data derived from its activity, related to production, yields, and other processes. If they are collected, it is important to exploit them by using artificial intelligence techniques that will help to guess patterns and predictions. Thus, it is important to analyse the generation of data from an activity and design systems that automatically help decision making.

Carrying out physical and chemical analyses on different agricultural matrices: soil, plant material, animal feed and organic waste, using certified methodologies. These results cam be incorporated into a software that allows the standardisation of the results of different analysis systems and different laboratory technicians, in order to draw up results reports and to carry out is interpretation.

Through a survey of the digital terrain model of the plot and the mapping of the soil through apparent electrical conductivity (CEap), a series of digital maps are obtained to evaluate the state of the soil at a physical, chemical and thermal level, being able to make decisions and interpret the agronomic problems or circumstances faced by the crops grown on the plot.

After being mapped, the types of soil in the plot are obtained, and through targeted sampling and subsequent laboratory analysis, the real available nutrient content will be obtained. With this information, different nutrient content maps are developed and, together with the information on production potential obtained from the advanced analysis of the satellite images of the last 5 years of that plot, it is possible to obtain the nutrient needs to be provided to satisfy this potential production. Al lof this is analysed through algorithms with agronomic calculations and the constant supervision of a competent technician/agronomist, to obtain the prescription of the fertiliser units to be applied per m2. This information is collected on a map in a suitable format for importing to the monitor of the fertiliser spreader or application equipment, which, via ISOBUS or wireless technology, changes the regulation to apply what it reads on the loaded map.

Through the soil information obtained with the previous mapping, we achieve the number of types of soil there are in a plot, on which an estimation is made depending on the crop and variety of the seed density that this soil can support: water retention capacity. This parameter is calculated through the information mapped by means of proprietary algorithms. This is analysed through algorithms with agronomic calculations and always under the supervision of a competent technician/agronomist, to obtain the prescription of how much fertiliser to apply per m2. This information is collected on a map in a format suitable for importing to the monitor of the fertiliser spreader or application equipment which, via ISOBUS or wireless technology, changes the regulation to apply what it reads on the loaded map.

A quality mapping of the vineyard is carried out using equipment to measure different parameters of the leaf or bunch in a non-destructive way. It is a multi-parametric fluorescence sensor based on the excitation and detection of the photodiode (LED) in this equipment. The equipment has a head with different LED sources: 6 ultraviolet sources and 3 RBG sources, and three detectors in between: yellow (YR), far red (FRF) and red (RF). The equipment has a GPS with differential correction that allows the samples to be georeferenced to subsequently obtain digital maps.

The head of the equipment must be brought close to the surface to be measured, previously placing the appropriate grid depending on the matrix to be characterised. In each measurement, which lasts one second, 500 flashes of light are emitted and collected by the different detectors, thus obtaining the most representative average.

The MULTIPLEX processor calculates the different indices, whose georeferenced values are taken to generate the maps.  These georeferenced values are processed through geostatistical tools to obtain the specific maps for each parameter.

Using the soil maps, plot heat balance, vigour index maps and cultural management, neural networks are trained with the output variable of the different vineyard quality indexes. As a result, a model is obtained that allows estimating, weeks after ripening, which areas will have a higher or lower grape quality, as well as knowing which factor has more weight per plot in the final quality of the grape.

Every year, new technology or trials requiring validation are carried out on a vineyard plot at different stages of crop development. These trials are used by the organisation to technically adjust the services or products and also to assess the response of potential customers to the incorporation of this technology on their farms. For this reason, a focus group dynamic is carried out during a day that will allow this technology to be commercially validated/adjusted..

Different agronomic trials of cereal, oilseed and protein crops are carried out, for which a trial harvester is available with a weighing and crop characterisation system that allows the yield, specific weight and humidity of the crops to be obtained in real time, as well as recording this data in digital format, ready for statistical evaluation.

Based on industrial experience in safety services, we have outlined a set of services aimed at the agricultural and forestry world that take into account the technical limitations and special needs of this sector.

The volume of security activities is so extensive that our service is based on an in-depth analysis of the problem and offers a tailor-made solution for the client. The designed roadmap involves existing and commercial technologies, adaptation of proprietary tools and training.

A highlight of this service is the design of customised solutions using Bluetooth beacon and high-power radar technologies, biometric sensors, IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) technologies and AI (artificial intelligence) services integrated with distributed decision-making systems and central monitoring systems.

Campaigns to raise awareness in the sector about the opportunities and challenges of digitalisation. We offer the design, programming and management of events / workshops and specific activities aimed at the sector. Events will be programmed according to the communication needs of the moment.

Implementation of means of communication for the exchange of experiences by sectors (agriculture, livestock, forestry and environment). The service will consist in the creation of a dedicated space for the sector, preferably through the use of already existing means / applications (Teams, Workspaces, etc.) with the aim of facilitating interaction and exchange of experiences among DIH-LEAF participants. These spaces allow the creation of groups, chats, rooms, meetings and live video streaming for people to communicate and work together..

Implantación de medios de comunicación para el intercambio de experiencias por sectores (agrícola, ganadero, forestal y medioambiental). El servicio consistirá en la creación de un espacio dedicado para el sector, preferentemente mediante el uso de medios / aplicaciones ya existentes (Teams, Workspaces, etc.) con el objetivo de facilitar la interacción y el intercambio de experiencias entre los participantes del DIH. Estos espacios permiten crear grupos, chat, salas, reuniones y transmisión de videos en vivo para que las personas se comuniquen y trabajen en conjunto.

The introduction of New Technologies and the Internet of Things in many areas of our society is an unstoppable reality, especially in the field of industry and agriculture dedicated to the production of higher added value. Adaptation to this new reality is also an unstoppable fact addressed from multiple productive sectors, especially those related to agricultural machinery, the management of agricultural inputs and the monitoring of crop development. Although technological advances are unquestionable, their penetration in the sector, mainly in traditional agriculture and livestock farming, is being hindered by the lack of training of its main actors and the dispersion of the technological solutions presented.

DIH-LEAF offers training and capacity building services for managers and staff of different organisations, at a basic, intermediate and advanced level. These services include specific training for the safe and efficient operation of agricultural machinery equipped with the latest technologies (GPS-based autoguidance systems, ISOBUS, variable rate fertiliser systems, data collection of harvest quantity and quality, spectral images obtained by fixed or mobile systems, etc.).

Programmes are also developed for the technical and transversal training of unemployed people who can develop emerging professions in the primary sector.

In this world we are living in, it is essential to train, qualify and adapt the employability of people who dedicate or want to dedicate their working future to the production and distribution of agricultural, livestock, food, forestry or biodiversity conservation products, adapting their work to the demands of today's increasingly technological market.

In this way, actions, courses and conferences will be organised on different topics, on sustainability and preservation of natural resources and their interrelation with the processes of digital transformation.

This is the holding of an event (usually over two/three days) in which entrepreneurs in the sector and suppliers of knowledge and technology have the opportunity to exchange needs and experiences. The activity takes the format of a trade fair and provides an environment that promotes B2B interviews, contacts through computer applications, related talks and presentations, etc.

Advisory service aimed at companies, freelancers and entrepreneurs to seek and apply for public grants and subsidies for their projects and activities. Personalised consultancy is provided in a specific way for the definition and implementation of an appropriate financing strategy for each particular case.

A web platform is available with more than 300 public subsidies and grants available at European, national, regional and provincial level. It contains related information of interest to businesses such as guides, tools and self-diagnoses of the financial situation and the public aid available for the profile of each company.

The platform also offers the possibility of directly applying for financing, as well as unlimited access to guides and financial management tools. In addition, registration on the platform allows, via subscription, the reception of a newsletter personalised for each user according to their preferences.

Within the platform you can start contracting other specific and personalised services for each business, such as online advice from expert consultants to clarify specific doubts about projects and/or activities, as well as the necessary and available financing for your individual case, definition and implementation of your financing strategy combining the different public aids available.

The service consists of tracking funding opportunities in the regional, national and European scenario, aligning the opportunities with the lines of research and strategic technological developments of the requesting entities. To this end, the service consists of the evaluation of the different funding programmes based on the analysis of the calls for proposals, participation in specific events, establishment of the possibilities of success and evaluation of consortiums. On the other hand, within this service, an evaluation of the technologies of the applicant companies will be carried out, as well as the different lines of research related to digitisation that are the object of funding..

In recent years, participation in collaborative projects, especially at European level, has become an interesting source of funding, but also of knowledge exchange and fruitful scientific collaborations, international cooperation and the opening up of research to new social challenges. In these courses, the keys to participate in European programmes are explained, from the structuring of the idea, creation and management of consortiums, coordination of the writing and keys for the presentation of the proposal, to finally the phase of telematic presentation of the documentation.

Dissemination is carried out through the official communication channels of DIH-LEAF, as well as through other usual means of communication in the agricultural, livestock, forestry and environmental sectors.

This service consists in the identification and follow-up of consortia and potential partners for the preparation of competitive proposals at regional, national and European level.  For this purpose, different events dedicated to the creation of consortia will be selected, such as Info Days and Brokerage Events, as well as specific meetings with key partners for the development of competitive proposals and projects. The objective will be the representation of the applicant entities in these events in order to improve their visibility and also increase their chances of participation in competitive proposals.

Accelerator of ideas, rural and urban green ventures, whose aim is to promote economic recovery and employment, mainly among the most disadvantaged groups and depopulated areas, through the enhancement and good management of agro-livestock and forestry resources; promoting training, advice, mentoring and supporting in different disciplines and tasks, mainly digital tasks, that will help to successfully develop these ventures.

Ecoworking centres are offered for the promotion of green entrepreneurship and technological innovation that aim to support ideas, initiatives and sustainable entrepreneurship, mainly linked to the rural environment and its digitalisation, throughout the territory of Castilla y León. Physical and virtual collaborative work spaces are offered. 

"Environmental conservation does not only consist of restricting and prohibiting certain human actions, but it necessarily involves raising awareness and direct involvement of citizens, both in decision-making and in active participation in actions to improve the environment. This is why we must promote citizen and business participation, thanks to which they can carry out actions to conserve the environment, as this is an optimal way for society, from the individual level, to take on the conservation of the natural and environmental heritage of their surroundings and therefore its care and preservation as something of their own. Emphasising that in the 21st century, technology and digitalisation are key to the development of citizen networks and interconnection between territories.

Thus, the development of two citizen participation actions is proposed:

Environmental volunteering: Conservation and environmental education campaign, which aims to raise awareness among the general public about the importance of protecting our ecosystems while carrying out direct actions to conserve biodiversity (planting trees, collecting waste, making and placing nesting boxes ....).
Land stewardship: A tool that promotes the voluntary involvement of owners and users in the conservation of nature, the landscape and the cultural heritage located on their farms and in their surroundings.
Technological development aspects will be introduced throughout this programme.