Outback Crop Circles | by Alex Mills

On a stretch of highway between Port Hedland to Broome in northern Western Australia, three big green circles stand out against the plains of red dirt, the latest project of my 23-year-strong cattle breeding family company. 

Our first pivot crop.

When we acquired the Kimberly coast property in late 2013, it came with an artesian bore with enough water pressure to supply three 47-hectare (116-acre) pivots without additional pumping.

Being cattlemen and not farmers, we stepped lightly into the world of center pivots and after much research and many discussions with other pivot farmers and experts, decided on the Valley_® brand. In early 2014, three pre-owned Valley pivots arrived at the property ready to be assembled under the supervision of new Pivot Manager Simon Scott. 

The goal of the project was to effectively drought proof the two properties, which hold 30,000 cattle collectively. Two pivots grow sorghum which is cut, baled and silage wrapped approximately every 30 days, while the third is reserved for 'stand and graze,’ where cattle are cell grazed to eat directly off the pivot before sale.

The pivot site is over 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the homestead, so it quickly became clear that we would need remote control and monitoring of the pivots. The age of the pivots meant that we were unable to use the new Valley BaseStation3™. After researching some possible alternatives, the task was handed to me. I quit my job at the end of 2014 to start working on AgConnect.

Head of the new controller.

The existing Valley control panel already contains 99 percent of the electronics required, so I selected a Siemens programmable logic controller, which, combined with a series of relays, enabled me to control the pivot over a Wi-Fi network. I learned to program the controller in two days and had the full pivot program ready by the end of the week. 

A new digital resolver installed in each pivot provides accurate position information to the controller. I installed a fully redundant server in the shed office that connects the three pivots, weather station and soil probes to the AgConnect web app.

AgConnect running on an iPhone.

I built the AgConnect app to constantly monitor the network, pivot state, weather station and soil probes, alerting the user with a notification if a system issue or alert occurs. The latest sensor readings are displayed visually for the user and sent periodically to our Agronomist for accurate fertilizer recipes. Data is sent to and from the pivot in real time so the user always knows exactly what is happening and can make machine changes right from the app.

For safety and security reasons, all 'safety-override' movements must be made on-site using the Valley control panel.

In the future, the user will be able to create schedules and sub-divide the pivots into sections for more detailed control over the irrigation. The next step is to connect the chemigation and solar power systems for complete control and monitoring over the entire site. 

This has been a considerable undertaking for Warrawagine Cattle Co., and I'm proud of what we have been able to achieve so far. It's exciting to be able to help shape the future of the growing pivot irrigation industry here in Australia.

Apple^® and iPhone^® are registered trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

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Alex Mills Software Developer Alex is a guest writer for the Growing the Conversation blog by Valley. He is a self-taught software developer and designer with a passion for electronics and solving technical challenges. Raised on an outback cattle ranch, Alex has always been fascinated by technology in the bush and its future applications in agriculture.

Five Years Equals a Lifetime in Remote Farm Management | by Steve Sveum

Recently, we at AgSense^® were very excited to release our Field Commander^® Ultimate remote precision irrigation package. The package combines various AgSense technologies into one kit that allows for total control and monitoring of an entire irrigation system from the Web or a smartphone.

Learn more about Field Commander Ultimate

This is our latest (and certainly not our last) in a series of new product introductions. As I approach my five year anniversary with AgSense, it is interesting for me to reflect on how far our technology, both hardware and software, has come during that time. Five years represents about 10 percent of my lifetime (give or take), but several generations in the life of our remote irrigation technology and software.

In 2010, we had just started selling our Field Commander product for pivot monitor and control. That replaced our Pivot Point product, which simply monitored and allowed for remote stop of a pivot, similar to what our Field Commander Lite does today. Field Commander added single end gun, remote speed programming and remote start capabilities for most pivots and panels. It now includes two end guns or pump control, wire theft monitoring, and the ability to read and report precipitation.

Also since 2010, we expanded our hardware and software capabilities to include SDI (drip irrigation), soil moisture monitoring, the Precision Link digital interface into the T-L Precision Point III Panel, and a whole host of weather and agronomic condition sensors, putting all that critical data and control literally at growers’ fingertips via our smartphone apps and Web interface.

Speaking of the WagNet^® app, it was released in 2013. It has been wildly popular, and our statistics show that today 70 percent of the commands sent to and through AgSense devices are sent from growers’ smartphones or tablets.

We are proud to be one of the pioneers in remote precision irrigation programming and control. WagNet software is compatible with several major suppliers of irrigation prescription and scheduling software, allowing for very quick and easy uploading of prescriptions into pivots. Again, most of this capability has been developed since 2010 and is available for any electric pivot, regardless of brand, age or panel type.

As the technology has grown and evolved, so has the business itself. Our biggest month of shipping in 2015 will be represent more units than we shipped all year my first year. My office near Minneapolis was the first AgSense location outside of the home office in South Dakota. We now have four remote offices around the country (Minnesota, Kentucky, Nebraska and Idaho) where our regional managers work from.

Our international business has also grown significantly, thanks in large part to our OEM agreements with pivot manufacturers such as Valley, which purchased part of AgSense in 2014. We currently have active devices in more than 20 countries around the world.

The way things are going, it looks like the next five years may be even more exciting than the last! Stay tuned and THANK YOU to all the growers, dealers and industry partners that have helped us get here! Many of you have been with us since nearly the beginning.

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Steve Sveum Vice President – Sales and Marketing AgSense, LLC Steve has been involved in agriculture most of his life. He was raised near Omaha in eastern Nebraska, and spent most of his summers working for farmers in that area, as well as in northeast South Dakota near his family’s homestead farm. Steve developed a passion for agriculture during those years and went on to receive an agricultural business degree from South Dakota State University. His 25-year career in the ag industry has been spent in leadership roles, primarily in the application and precision ag segments. Steve particularly enjoys projects developing new businesses and markets. He now makes his home in Centerville, Minn., with his wife and two children.