Transcript
Have you ever wanted to know the exact weather at your place? Well farmers now can. MetService is partnering with a farm management company to provide the rural sector with pinpoint weather data which they can access on a smartphone.
Andrew Hasbrous started growing walnuts in West Melton more than 20 years ago. Now he has 45 hectares worth of them. This time of year is harvest, so the walnut trees drop their walnuts for about six weeks a year. We pick them up.
To help get the best produce possible he uses a soil moisture sensor to get real-time data about his soil. We’re fully irrigated and we determine when we irrigate according to when the CropX soil moisture sensor says that we should.
Now MetService is partnering with CropX to combine their data and send pinpoint weather information straight to a farmer’s phone. You can have in one day four seasons and that’s quite hard to predict. To forecast you need to have a speciality in this location. This piece of equipment will allow us to understand what is happening at and just below ground level. That includes moisture, temperature, and EC.
The data connectivity aims to help farmers make better decisions for their land and for the environment. We’re using resources responsibly. We’re not leaching any nutrients and we’ve created the perfect conditions to optimize growth.
MetService hopes that information will also help farmers respond to extreme weather. They could better predict what the impacts will be of a severe weather event and after the event they’ll understand what has happened.
