“MOST of us have these devices, what could this device possibly tell you while you are wondering around observing and making agronomic recommendations about the status of that paddock and the season?”
That was the thought-provoking question from CSIRO Agriculture and Food Farming Systems Science group leader Dr Roger Lawes on the possibility of smart phones when talking at the Grains Research and Development Corporation’s Research Updates, Perth, last week.
Dr Lawes pondered how to transform technology so that decisions could be made in near real-time out in the paddock.
CSIRO has been developing technologies to understand the WA Wheatbelt.
“We are looking at building crop classification technologies so we can look at what species are in every paddock across the entire 19.5 million hectares of WA,” Dr Lawes said.
“Currently they can do crop estimates from anytime in the season, without having to wait until harvest based on past yield data.
“We can zoom into an individual farm and differentiating individual crop species, we can look at the difference between canola, cereals and legumes and we can certainly differentiate between those different commodities in real time.”
These products mean farmers will be able to quickly and seamlessly understand and monitor a crop in real time like never before.
Last year CSIRO forecasted with reasonable accuracy, with an estimate of 14 million tonnes and an average of 13.5mt across WA.
Through the explosion of sensors and satellites, CSIRO hopes to focus this data for different clients and for different end users at all times of the year.
