Three principles · eight lessons · ~47k words
Fundamentals.
Eight lessons that teach agricultural technology from first principles. Each one a substantive piece of writing meant for a grower with no prior technology background. Read them in order if you are new to the field. Skim past the introductions and click the lesson you need if you are coming back.
The principles
Three ideas sit under everything.
Read these first. They are the why behind every lesson, widget, and guide on the site. The first — Appropriate Technology — also opens the lesson series below.
Appropriate Technology
Data Is King
Collect, Have, Use
How to read these
The eight build on each other. None require any of the others.
Each lesson stands on its own — a grower who needs to understand sensors can jump straight to lesson 05 and get the whole picture. But the order is not arbitrary. Lesson 01 frames why appropriate technology matters. Lesson 02 names what is out there. Lessons 03 through 07 cover the practical layers of a working system — power, communications, sensors, controls, data — in roughly the order a grower thinks about them when designing one. Lesson 08 takes on AI, which threads through all the others.
If you are building your first system, start with 01 and 05 and 07 in that order. If you are debugging an existing system, jump to the layer where the problem lives. If you are evaluating a vendor's claims, read 02 first to put their pitch in context.
The eight lessons
Start with the basics.
Each card opens a substantive lesson. Word counts and FAQ counts are listed so you know what you are getting into.