A movable data acquisition and production management system for apple orchard

Abstract. Along with the further adjustment of rural industry structure and the rapid development of commodity economy in China, Orchard production becomes more and more important in Chinese agriculture. During the informatization of agriculture, the method to manage data in real time with portable smart device is becoming more and more significant. A ZigBee wireless sensors network was established to collect each apple tree’s growing and environmental data such as NDVI, soil moisture, soil temperature, ambient air humidity and temperature. A PDA was customized by integrating ZigBee coordinator module, GPS OEM module, GPRS module and RFID module. And an embedded orchard farming application including five modules which are GPS management, Orchard boundary obtaining, Map management, Orchard data collecting and Uploading and downloading was developed based on the orchard farming PDA and Android operating system to collect the data from the wireless sensors network, acquire GPS data of each tree and read the RFID label which is mounted on each tree. The system test run showed that the system is robust, reliable and operable, and it can provide convenient and quick services for fixed and mobile terminals to carry out remote orchard farming management.