WHILE growers push back seeding another week in the hope the season will break, the West Midlands Group (WMG) will launch a new workshop exploring future of ag-tech and optimising in-season decision making.
The In-Season Management and eConnect workshop, on Thursday, June 20, 2019, at Badgingarra, will feature useful decision support tools, agricultural apps and advice from industry experts.
Among the fantastic line-up of speakers is Kondinin Group general manager of research Ben White, who will present on where automation is at and how it could change the way things are done on-farm.
"Currently automation is building pace, with a number of farms across Australia having invested in the technology already, while others are investing in getting set up for the application of the technology," Mr White said.
According to Mr White, decision support tools will also play an important role on farm in the future.
"Decision support tools utilise information layers from a range of sources: soil tests, farmer knowledge, topography, yield maps and response curves," he said.
"Some of these can influence what decisions are made, for example, where management zones are established and what management practices are employed in those zones."
The Department of Primary Industries and Development (DPIRD) development officer Christiaan Valentine will share his team's efforts over the past three years to develop 'smart' traps to monitor insects and disease.
"The traps can be anything from using cameras to count moths in the field, to coating microscope slides with sticky material to capture disease spores as they move across the district," Mr Valentine said.
"By the end of the project, we hope to have a number of cost effective, reliable systems that can monitor insects and disease, which will ultimately play an important role in early warning for farmers and predictive ?modelling."
This workshop is supported by DPIRD's eConnected Grainbelt project and will be followed by a Grains Development and Research Corporation Regional Cropping Solutions Network open forum.
p For more information contact West Midlands Group on 9651 4008.
