Irrigation control system buyer's main country

When they talk about irrigation control systems, everyone immediately thinks about technology - sensors, controllers, software. But in fact, the key point that many people miss is who this system is being made for. The main country of the buyer dictates completely different requirements than we used to think. This is what I want to talk about, based on our experience of working with different regions.

Why does the buyer's country change everything?

We at Shandong Linyao Intelligent Agriculture Technology LLC first also focused on technical parameters - irrigation accuracy, energy efficiency, compatibility with various equipment. But a few years ago we came across an interesting case: they delivered the system to Uzbekistan, but it didn’t take root. It would seem that the climate is similar, the technologies are the same. But it turned out that local agronomists are accustomed to managing irrigation the old fashioned way, based on visual signs of plants, and not based on data from soil moisture sensors.

Then we realized thatirrigation control systemis not just a set of hardware and programs. These are also people’s habits, local norms, even how labor is organized on farms. If the buyer's country is dominated by small farms, they do not need complex automation - they value simplicity and maintainability. Large agricultural holdings, on the contrary, are looking at integration with ERP systems and analytics.

Now, when developing new solutions, for example for our smart agricultural parks project, we first study who the end user will be. Not in the sense of 'farmer', but precisely from what country, what region, what kind of crop he has, the size of his fields, access to the Internet, even the qualifications of his staff. This affects everything from the choice of materials (to withstand the local climate) to the control interface.

Experience of adapting to different regions

Let's take Kazakhstan, for example. There they pay a lot of attention to the energy independence of systems, because in remote areas there are power outages. We had to modify the controllers - add backup power from solar panels, simplify the operating logic so that if a failure occurs, the system does not “fall”, but goes into the basic mode. This was not spelled out in the terms of reference initially, but without such an approach it simply would not have worked.

But in Belarus there is a different approach - they value accuracy and environmental friendliness more. They require that the system take into account not only soil moisture, but also the weather forecast and the phase of crop development. We had to integrate our solutions with local weather services and add a module for calculating evapotranspiration. By the way, this was later useful for other projects, for example, during the construction of high-quality agricultural fields in Russia.

The hardest part is finding the balance between versatility and adaptation. If you make a system entirely for a specific country, it becomes more expensive. If left universal, it may not take into account local peculiarities. We at Shandong Linyao Intelligent Agriculture Technology LLC are now following the path of modular architecture: the basic functionality is the same, but modules are added or removed for a specific buyer. For example, for arid regions we strengthen the water filtration module, for humid regions - drainage.

Technical nuances that are rarely talked about

One of the key points is the reliability of communication. In theory, everyone wants IoT and remote control. In practice, in Central Asia, for example, there are areas where mobile Internet is available, but the speed leaves much to be desired. It is necessary to provide for offline operation, data buffering, and synchronization when a connection appears. This is not the most difficult task, but if it is not taken into account, the system will 'glitch' at the most inopportune moment.

Another point is water quality. When designing hydraulic structures, we always include additional filtration reserves if we know that the water in the region is hard or contains impurities. Otherwise, nozzles and drip lines quickly fail. By the way, our website https://www.lyzhihuinongye.ru precisely reflects this approach - there are sections on the selection of equipment taking into account local conditions, and not just a catalog of goods.

And of course, service issues. Ifbuyer's main countrylocated far from our service centers, we make sure to train local specialists, prepare documentation in the local language, and create a stock of parts in warehouses. This increases the implementation time, but the system then works for years without failures. I remember how in one of the projects in Moldova we even had to conduct on-site seminars for agronomists to explain how to interpret data from sensors and make decisions. Without this, all automation is useless.

Mistakes we made and corrected

We had a project in Russia, where we installed a system with advanced irrigation forecasting based on AI. Technically, everything worked perfectly, but... local agronomists did not trust the 'black box'. They wanted to understand why the system recommended watering on a particular day. I had to add an explanation module - a simple interface that showed what factors (temperature, humidity, growth phase) influenced the decision. It taught us that even the smartest system should be transparent to the user.

Another mistake is underestimating local standards. In one of the CIS countries it turned out that there are strict restrictions on water consumption per hectare, and these standards vary depending on the crop and season. Our system initially did not take these limits into account; we had to urgently modify it. Now, when starting any project, we always request not only agrotechnical requirements, but also the regulatory framework.

And another thing is the difference in approaches to pricing. In some countries, buyers are willing to pay for long-term savings, in others they look only at the initial costs. This influences what features we offer. For example, a frequency automatic equipment module is more expensive to install, but saves up to 30% of electricity. In countries with expensive electricity, they take it willingly, but in countries where energy is cheap, they prefer simpler options.

What happens in the end

Now our approach toirrigation control systembecame much more flexible. We don’t just sell equipment, but offer a solution that will work specifically in the conditions of a specific buyer. This includes the selection of components (for example, frost-resistant materials for northern regions), software configuration, and personnel training.

Interestingly, this approach sometimes leads to non-obvious solutions. For example, for one client from Kyrgyzstan we proposed a hybrid system - partly automatic, partly manual. It seemed like a step back from a technical point of view, but it suited their work organization and budget perfectly. And the system has been operating successfully for three years now.

To summarize, the main conclusion is this: you cannot create an irrigation control system in a vacuum.Buyer's primary countrydetermines not only the technical parameters, but also how the system will be accepted, used and maintained. This is more difficult than just making a 'universal product', but the result is truly working, and not just a beautiful toy on paper. This is exactly what we do at Shandong Linyao Intelligent Agriculture Technology LLC - we create solutions that really help farmers, and do not just correspond to technical specifications.