Project description: The FERTiOLiVE project proposes the development of a disruptive technological solution that is accessible and tailored to the reality of traditional Portuguese olive groves. At the national level, this production system accounts for approximately 75% of the total olive-growing area and is predominantly composed of small- and medium-sized farms, often located in low-density territories with limited access to digital technologies and a lack of effective decision-support tools, particularly in fertilization management. In practice, fertilization is largely based on empirical approaches that are poorly aligned with the actual nutritional requirements of plants, leading to resource waste, productivity losses, and undesirable environmental impacts.

To promote more efficient, informed, and sustainable fertilization management, the project proposes the development and validation of an intelligent and autonomous system integrating a low-cost soil sensor, machine learning models optimized for offline operation on TinyML microcontrollers, and an intuitive mobile application accessible to users with low digital literacy. This solution will enable in-field collection of soil data, inference of plant nutritional status, and the generation of personalized fertilization recommendations in real time and without the need for connectivity, addressing existing technological gaps in the current market.

Approval date |28/09/2025
Start date |01/01/2026
Completion date |31/12/2028

Total eligible investment |1 175 483,25
Financial support | 956 990,12

Promoters | Natureza Prima – Soluções Sustentáveis, Lda
Copromotors | MORE, IPB, APPITAD