## 1 Introduction
The digital divide also affects agricultural practices in developing countries, as many current innovations have not yet \"filtered down\". Embedded systems and wireless technologies can, in the long run, reduce costs and increase profits in countries with favorable year-round climates that permit multiple harvests but lack other essentials required to maximize their potential. Advances in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology have made the deployment of wireless sensor nodes a reality, in part, because they are small, inexpensive and energy efficient. Each node of a sensor network consists of three basic subsystems: a sensor subsystem to monitor local environmental parameters, a processing subsystem to provide computational support to the node, and a communication subsystem to provide wireless communications to exchange information with neighboring nodes. Because individual sensor nodes can only cover a relatively limited area, they need to be connected to one another in a coordinated manner to form a wireless sensor network (WSN), which can provide large amounts of detailed information about a given geographic area. Consequently, a wireless sensor network can be described as a collection of intercommunicated wireless sensor nodes which coordinate to perform a specific action. Unlike traditional wireless networks, WSNs depend on dense deployment and coordination to carry out their task. Wireless sensor nodes measure conditions in the environment surrounding them and then transform these measurements into signals that can be processed to reveal specific information about phenomena located within the coverage area surrounding these sensor nodes. However, the imperative necessity to control physical variables such as temperature, relative humidity, soil moisture, _etc._, has led to the development of wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs), which are commonly composed of heterogeneous devices referred to as sensors and actuators. Sensors are low-cost low-power multi-functional devices that communicate wirelessly for short distances. Actuators are usually resource-rich devices with greater processing capabilities, higher transmission capabilities, and longer battery life. Actuators collect and process sensor data and perform specific actions within a specified environment based on the information they receive. Future applications will extensively employ wireless sensor networks that function in real time in conjunction with communications systems, mechanical actuators, and even robots to monitor and intervene in crop cultivation. A wireless sensors network (WSN) permits remote monitoring of many parameters, depending on the type of sensors used and the coverage area. This type of network consists of a large number of sensor nodes that are wirelessly connected to each other, to electromechanical devices, and to a communications network, all of which form a triad to monitor and control crop development. Generally, each node of a WSN consists of sensors and/or actuators. Sensors are characterized by their limited memory and computation capacities, but one advantage of sensors is that they require little power to perform their functions. Wireless sensor networks consisting of many nodes are currently being used in densely populated large scale areas. WSNs can have homogenous structures, where all nodes present similar characteristics, or heterogeneous structures, where some nodes are more powerful than others or are differentiated by physical characteristics, including the type of battery or antenna the individual nodes use, or whether specific nodes are static or dynamic. WSNs have a variety of applications. Examples include environmental monitoring--which involves monitoring air, soil and water, condition-based maintenance, habitat monitoring, seismic detection, military surveillance, inventory tracking, smart spaces, _etc_. [4,5].