0:02 Juicy, red strawberries ripening on the vine are some of the sweetest

signs of springs
0:07 arrival. But as any farmer will tell you, bringing
0:10 those berries to perfect picking condition takes meticulous care and
precise timing.
0:16 Just ask Wade and Ben Butler of Butlers Orchard a small fruit and
vegetable farm
0:20 in Germantown, Maryland owned and operated by three generations
of Maryland alumni.
0:26 In early spring, saving strawberries from frost is a battle the Butlers
wage nightly.
0:32 I would just start driving around looking at temperatures, record the
time, record the
0:36 temperature. Get close enough that it's okay, we're going to have a
frost event, we're going
0:40 to need to turn our irrigation pumps on, and put water out to protect
the crop. I pick
0:45 up the phone at 3 AM, call my son. A phone call from Dad comes.
Come on out to
0:50 the farm, you know, let's check these blossoms and strawberries. I
was in the next day at
0:56 work, dragging, just kind of, "This is awful- there's got to be a better
way to do this."
1:00 A better way is in the works thanks to a research team led by
University of Maryland Professor
1:05 John Lea-Cox. The researchers are using wireless sensor
1:09 networks to help farmers monitor crops not just for frost protection but
to reduce water

1:14 usage, cut down on fertilizer applications and enhance production.

1:19 Sensors placed in the soil gather data on things like moisture levels
and environmental
1:24 conditions that is then transmitted through radio nodes to a base
computer on the farm
1:29 and ultimately available right at a farmers fingertips.
1:33 Because it's all internet-based, he can actually just log in on his cell
phone. He can open
1:38 up the software and he can look at that sensor data right on his
phone. Because of the sophistication
1:43 of the program, we can now send alerts to his phone
1:47 text alert or a voice mail. I was working with a grower the other day
1:51 and they actually said to me, this is a dream come true. To be able to
monitor my crop's
1:58 water status in real time and automate irrigation based on that.
2:03 Lea-Cox developed the sensor networks with engineers at CarnegieMelon and previously
2:07 studied them in nursery and greenhouse systems. Now, thanks to a
grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation
2:13 administered through the University of Arkansas National Strawberry
Sustainability Initiative,
2:17 Lea-Cox and his team are testing the technology for the first time in
strawberry fields at
2:22 three locations in Maryland. We have seen that this technology for the
2:27 nursery and greenhouse system can save water, fertilizers, labor, and
also reduce production
2:33 times. We are hoping for seeing some of those benefits in strawberry

production as well
2:40 Because sensor networks eliminate a lot of the guesswork in the field,
Maryland farmers
2:44 can better conserve water, nutrients and fertilizer in turn, reducing
whats running into
2:49 the Chesapeake Bay. And while the technology is already going
2:53 a long way towards preserving strawberry fields forever. It might just
represent the future
2:58 of farming in general. This morning I was laying in bed looking at
3:02 wind direction and wind speed. And that, just a few months ago
seemed like a
3:04 dream. The way I like to see it is we're just getting
3:08 started. We've just got the toolbox, we've just started with the toolbox,
and now we've
3:11 got tools that we can apply to all sorts of different types of situations
and crops.