How to get more yield, and save $100k

Riding shotgun in the header has always been one of my favourite things as a city slicker with family in the bush. 45 years ago, my grandfather and uncles scoured Australia for the best cropping country they could find, with a view to moving their somewhat marginal dry land farming wheat/sheep operations from Northern Victoria near Shepparton, to where ever they could best employ their knowledge and theories on best-practice broad acre agriculture. The quest brought them to the Liverpool Plains around Mullaley in Northern NSW. Famous for it's black volcanic soils, and reliable rainfall, the homework, including research with the CSIRO, and trecking vast tracts of this vast county, paid off. Since arriving in Mullaley, my cousins have gone forth and multiplied, and I'd say they've had many more good years than bad...but you won't here them bragging. They are salt of the earth farmers that just get on with whatever needs to be done next. No fuss.

Recently I spent a few days with them as I was completing a tour of regional cities and Ag department facilities, spreading the word on Free-IoT, LoRaWAN and how rural and regional communities can benefit from smart IoT technology.

The most compelling take-aways from my farm stay were these:

• Soil moisture data is life and death for broadacre farmers
• Having multiple, low cost, accurate data points using LoRaWAN soil moisture probes is very attractive to farmers. Think sub $1000 probes, and no cost of data
• Using LoRaWAN battery operated probes that can last for years, is better than expensive and unwieldy solar powered 3G rigs, that don't work when the crop over grows the panels, and don't work where there's no phone coverage.
• Having a single network that can cover a large area, and accommodate many different sensors is a game-changer - think moisture probes, weather stations, tank monitors, trough monitors, electric fence monitors, gate monitors...the list is long for AgTech LoRaWAN sensors.
• Not having to pay for data, and having 100% ownership of data are "must haves"
• Having a free dashboard, such as the SmartElements.io product, to present the data from sensors is highly desirable

And just to punctuate the points above, one of the locals related how mis-judging his soil moisture profile lead to him wasting a significant sum of money on fertiliser. With multiple soil moisture data points, easy to access data, at very low cost, he could have made a better decision...and saved $100k in the process!

IoT has the ability to take a lot of the guess work out of agriculture, putting the farmers on the front foot, and not at the mercy of chance. You can't control the weather, but you can maximise your chances of making good decisions with accurate data, that comes at a low cost.

I'm going to be touring many districts in Queensland, NSW and Victoria over the next year, so let me know if you'd like me to drop by, and share what I know.