INTEREST — iBO

Cotton cultivation is one of the main arable crops in Greece. In recent years, it occupies 45-50% of the total irrigated arable land, demonstrating its competitiveness compared to other irrigated crops. However, there has been an increase in the number of varieties cultivated, leading to negative impacts on the uniformity of the produced product. Often, during harvesting or ginning, different varieties with different characteristics are mixed, making it impossible to standardize the product. This creates significant problems for Greek cotton to become competitive in the markets. When leaving the ginning facility, a bale of cotton often does not contain cotton of the same variety and quality, making it challenging to assign an identity to it and compensate the producer accordingly.

Another crucial element is that with the current harvesting and management practices, it is not possible to pay for the final product based on its quality. The proposed system aims to address this problem. The system receives data from cylindrical bale cotton pickers, processes it using specialized algorithms, and assists the user in selecting the appropriate strategy for disposal and standardization of production based on factors such as the harvesting point, variety, moisture, and other characteristics. This makes it possible to sell the harvested product at better prices. It is estimated that such a tool will bring a new dynamic to the significant sector of cotton cultivation in Greece.