Agritech for Australian farms

Water: tanks, troughs and bores

On a grazing property, checking water can mean hours behind the wheel each week, and a dry trough cannot wait. Level sensors on tanks and troughs report over LoRa, from every few minutes to hourly, and an alarm goes out when a level drops below a set point or falls faster than it should. That can show a stuck float valve or a burst line within hours rather than at the next water run.

Ultrasonic and radar sensors measure from above without touching the water. Submersible pressure sensors measure from below and suit troughs and dams. On bores and pumps, we log run hours, flow and pressure, which can show a pump wearing out before it stops.

Soil moisture and weather

Multi-depth soil moisture probes show where water sits in the profile and how fast the crop is drawing it down. Logged against rainfall and irrigation, they show when to water and when to stop. We place probes at sites that represent each management zone, not at the easiest gate to reach.

An on-farm weather station adds rainfall, wind, temperature and humidity for your property rather than the nearest town. From those readings we calculate Delta T, the gap between dry and wet bulb temperatures that spray operators use to judge evaporation and drift risk, and we send frost alerts for sensitive crops.

Livestock tracking

GPS tags on LoRaWAN can report positions several times a day, on batteries that last months or longer depending on how often they report. That shows where mobs are grazing, flags an animal that has stopped moving and helps find stock in large paddocks.

Walk-over weighing at water points records weights without mustering, and each weight can be matched to the animal's National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) electronic tag. Integrity Systems manages the NLIS and explains the tagging rules for each species.

Crop imaging

Multispectral imagery measures how plants reflect red and near-infrared light. Indices such as NDVI turn that into a map of crop vigour that shows variation across a paddock. Imagery from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellites is free through the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, at 10 metre resolution for its main bands, with a new pass every few days when the sky is clear. Drone imagery adds centimetre-scale detail when you need to see rows or individual plants.

We use imagery to direct attention. A low-vigour patch is a reason to walk that part of the paddock, test the soil or check the irrigation line.

Yield analytics

Yield monitor data from harvesters is noisy. Header width changes, fill and drain delays at the start and end of runs, and GPS errors all distort the map. We clean it, combine it with soil and imagery layers and build zone maps that show which parts of a paddock pay and which do not. Those zones feed variable-rate prescriptions and next season's soil sampling plan.

Installed for farm conditions

Sensors on a farm get knocked by stock, machinery and weather. We mount loggers on standard posts or existing infrastructure, guard cables where cattle can reach them, and size solar panels for the site so no one has to swap batteries on a schedule. Each device is labelled with what it measures, so farm staff can move a probe between seasons or check a trough sensor without calling us.

One property, one system

The value comes from putting these layers together. One LoRaWAN network can carry soil, weather, water and stock data from across a property, and one dashboard can show all of it. We build the network and the loggers so you can add sensors later without starting again.

Questions