Planting is a critical link in the Tea industry chain, providing a guarantee for high-quality tea but also accounting for a significant portion of current tea production costs. Complex planting conditions and labor shortages continue to drive up the cost of tea cultivation, making intelligent planting an inevitable path for transforming tea production from traditional to modern modes.
I. Framework of Intelligent Tea Tree Planting
Intelligent planting is a comprehensive management system supported by advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big data, and cloud computing, encompassing agricultural monitoring, optimized decision-making, and automated equipment scheduling.
1. Monitoring and Sensing Layer
The monitoring and sensing layer acts as the “eyes” and “ears” of the intelligent system, serving as the foundation for information processing. This layer relies on various sensors mounted on carrier platforms to collect real-time data about the environment around the tea trees and the trees themselves, such as temperature, Humidity, radiation, and nutrient levels. The intelligent system requires that this information be acquired in situ, in real-time, with precision, speed, and intelligence, necessitating massive data storage compared to traditional observations.
2. Transmission and Storage Layer
The transmission and storage layer serves as the “nervous system” and “warehouse” of the intelligent system. The vast amounts of information collected by the monitoring and sensing layer are transmitted to the data warehouse through this layer, providing a continuous supply of “nutrients” for subsequent data calculations. The transmission process primarily relies on various data transmission protocols and devices to ensure efficient data transfer with minimal latency. Additionally, the layer needs to support networking among different devices and parallel processing of information. In the intelligent system, storage mainly involves efficient cloud storage and exchange of massive data, achieving high compatibility, low latency, and low error rates in data storage and retrieval.
3. Computing and Decision-Making Layer
The computing and decision-making layer acts as the “brain,” where the gathered information is processed through complex computations to generate actionable insights for users or sent to operational equipment. In the context of tea tree cultivation, this layer primarily handles the intelligent processing of agricultural information, path planning and decision control for equipment, enabling judgments on crop growth trends and generating response strategies for different scenarios, such as diagnosing stress states in tea trees and determining parameters for corresponding equipment operations. The computing and decision-making layer requires both computational power and algorithms, with computational power relying on computing chips and memory, while algorithms are at the core of decision-making.
4. Application and Service Layer
The application and service layer acts as the “hands and feet,” feeding back the information and parameters derived from the computing and decision-making layer to the appropriate endpoints, such as displays and mechanical equipment, to implement the decisions made. Due to the diversity of equipment and complexity of parameter requirements, the application feedback layer demands high compatibility of data information and precise operational parameters. Currently, the primary bottleneck in intelligent tea tree planting management lies in the monitoring and sensing layer and the computing and decision-making layer. While the technology and equipment for these layers are still in their infancy and far from industrial application, advancements in information technology and internet technology have made it relatively easy to transmit and store massive data. The challenge now is to reduce costs.
II. Current Status and Issues in Research on Intelligent Management of Tea Tree Planting
1. Agricultural Sensors
Agricultural sensors relevant to tea tree planting primarily include environmental sensors, plant physiological sensors, and smart device sensors. Environmental sensors are used to obtain parameters related to the soil and atmospheric environment essential for the survival of tea trees. Physiological sensors gather parameters related to the growth status of tea trees. Smart device sensors are employed for target identification and monitoring the performance of related equipment. Overall, China has conducted considerable research and development on rapid information acquisition and networking technologies. However, the sensors currently used in smart tea garden management are still general-purpose agricultural sensors, lacking dedicated sensors.
2. Information Perception Technologies
(1) Spatial Information Acquisition
Relying on Remote sensing platforms such as satellites and drones, combined with geographic information technology, key information within tea tree planting areas can be rapidly obtained. Different remote sensing data sources' spectral characteristics and various vegetation indices are applied, along with different algorithms, to extract texture features, classify tea gardens, and predict tea tree growth and damage conditions. In China, agricultural remote sensing satellite sensors primarily use multispectral remote sensing, lacking observational elements and coordinated observation capabilities between optical and microwave sensors, which need improvement in terms of data assurance rate and quality.
(2) Perception of Tea Tree Growth Trends
Plant growth information can be directly used for stress diagnosis and yield and quality predictions. These parameters often rely on traditional physicochemical analysis methods, which are time-consuming and labor-intensive. The real-time data required by intelligent management systems demand quick, non-destructive detection of crop physiological parameters. In recent years, extensive research has been conducted on inversion model algorithms for perceiving tea tree growth trends, such as using hyperspectral equipment to invert algorithms for tea tree species, leaf area index, chlorophyll, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content in canopy leaves, and other studies.
3. Realization of Smart Tea Gardens Systems
(1) Comprehensive Management System for Tea Gardens
A visual agricultural meteorological information dynamic monitoring and early warning system for tea gardens was designed and developed using wireless communication, Sensor detection, and digital image recognition technologies. This system can integrate the collection and comprehensive display of tea garden image information, temperature and humidity, and precipitation data. A tea garden monitoring system based on a low-power wide-area network IoT cloud platform was also designed. This system can collect real-time data on air temperature and humidity, soil temperature and humidity, and other parameters in tea gardens. Through server analysis and storage, the data is synchronized to PC and mobile ends, enabling remote intelligent monitoring of the tea garden environment.
Structural Principle Diagram of the Visual Agricultural Meteorological Information Dynamic Monitoring and Early Warning System for Tea Gardens
In research on intelligent control technology for tea garden habitats, a habitat intelligent control technology for tea gardens was established. This includes soil ecological regulation technology, ecological niche configuration and control technology, disease and pest monitoring and early warning and ecological control technology, automatic perception technology for habitat environmental information, intelligent water management technology, and an expert service system for intelligent control of tea garden habitats. From practical applications, current “smart tea gardens” stop at collecting agricultural information and summarizing information, with management decisions still relying on human input. The lack of intelligent decision-making algorithms is a bottleneck for “smart tea gardens.”
Overall Structure Diagram of the Tea Garden Monitoring System
Pest Monitoring and Early Warning Platform Model for Tea Gardens
(2) Intelligent Irrigation Equipment
The development of intelligent irrigation systems for tea gardens has two aspects: optimizing the driving structure of the irrigation system to improve irrigation efficiency and developing intelligent irrigation through algorithms to achieve precise timing of irrigation. An intelligent irrigation control system for tea gardens, jointly controlled by programmable controllers and frequency converters, was studied and designed. It can maintain constant pressure and save energy by continuously adjusting the variable-frequency pump and step-adjusting the fixed-frequency pump according to changes in water consumption across the entire flow range. It also displays various characteristic quantities during the irrigation process in real-time and dynamically, improving the automation level and management level of tea garden irrigation.
Control Principle of the Constant Pressure Irrigation System
An intelligent irrigation system for tea gardens based on a wireless sensor network was designed. It can provide precise real-time