From sixteen hours of irrigation a week to six
In the heart of Emilia-Romagna's pear country, Massimo Gallerani runs five hectares under anti-hail nets with a single SoilSense system. It changed the one decision that drives everything else: when, and how much, to irrigate.
Emilia-Romagna, Italy
- Where
- Emilia-Romagna, Italy
- Crop
- Pears · 5 hectares
- Irrigation
- 16 → ~6 hours a week
Less water wasn't the goal. Irrigating on evidence was.
Massimo Gallerani grows pears on five hectares in Emilia-Romagna, under the anti-hail nets that define the region's fruit country. For years the irrigation ran on habit — long, infrequent cycles of eight hours, twice a week, the way it had always been done.
A single SoilSense system, spread across the five hectares, gave him a continuous read on how much water the trees actually had. The dashboard shows plant-available water and soil moisture at two depths, with a safe range to stay inside. Instead of a calendar, he had a number.
The schedule inverted: from 8 hours twice a week to just 2 hours every 3 days — shorter, more frequent events calibrated to real demand. Sixteen weekly hours of irrigation became about six, keeping the soil steadily inside the safe range instead of swinging between stress and excess.
“Now I have an objective figure to rely on, instead of going by feel.”
Fewer hours, less diesel, and the best harvest in years.
Fewer irrigation hours meant fewer pumping hours — a direct cut in diesel — alongside more efficient use of an increasingly scarce resource. The trees responded too: Massimo believes past seasons had suffered from too much water, and correcting that overwatering is something he can now see in the canopy. This year's crop is his best in years — a result he credits to several factors, but in which precise, data-led irrigation clearly plays its part. Next, he'll keep the sensors running through winter, to reach spring's regrowth from a known baseline.
Irrigating your orchard by habit?
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll size a single SoilSense system to your orchard, show you the safe-range view Massimo uses, and walk through how fewer, better-timed irrigations save water and diesel without stressing the trees.