Hi (first post),
Searching the term "precision viticulture" will yield links to how mature this area of agriculture has become, and will provide many use cases. (add the words "gateway", precision cropping, agriculture).
The term is used to mean a range of technologies from satellite photos, LIDAR mapping, drone mapping but of course includes sensor networks.
I have been monitoring this scene for a while and it seems ideally suited to ZigBee style wireless sensor networks, among other technologies.
I think LoRa will provide a much cheaper and efficient solution. It is possible to forsee LoRa nodes becoming mini-gateways themselves reporting local summaries of events. Given the need for precision, If the node costs were low enough one can easily foresee a single large vineyard needing 1000 nodes or more. This leads me to think that each node COULD be responsible for reporting say, data from the 5 sub-nodes nearest it, and these could be using a different short range RF, say like NRF24L01+ radios. I can report on other ideas I have seen including the monitoring of grape growth through cameras (mentioned earlier in this thread), the monitoring of pests and diseases, and security, where LoRa might provide event notification only.
Anyhow, just to say add the word "precision" and you'll get lots of use cases already in operation, and many more in the pipeline.