Wireless sensor networks for agriculture: The state-of-the-art in practice and future challenges

•The existing state-of-the-art in wireless sensor networks for agricultural applications is reviewed thoroughly.•The existing WSNs are analyzed with respect to communication and networking technologies, standards, and hardware.•The prospects and problems of the existing framework are discussed with case studies for global and Indian scenarios.•Few futuristic applications are presented highlighting the factors for improvements for the existing scenarios.

The advent of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) spurred a new direction of research in agricultural and farming domain. In recent times, WSNs are widely applied in various agricultural applications. In this paper, we review the potential WSN applications, and the specific issues and challenges associated with deploying WSNs for improved farming. To focus on the specific requirements, the devices, sensors and communication techniques associated with WSNs in agricultural applications are analyzed comprehensively. We present various case studies to thoroughly explore the existing solutions proposed in the literature in various categories according to their design and implementation related parameters. In this regard, the WSN deployments for various farming applications in the Indian as well as global scenario are surveyed. We highlight the prospects and problems of these solutions, while identifying the factors for improvement and future directions of work using the new age technologies.