Project: Red Hill Farm - 365mesh

Red Hill Farm

Helping farmers better manage their water monitoring capabilities with IoT solutions

Outcomex utilised Farmdeck, its all-in-one IoT farm management solution for agriculture powered by 365mesh, at Red Hill Farm in Barraba, New South Wales. Farmdeck gave Red Hill Farm the ability to efficiently manage their water supply, while streamlining daily tasks, such as the morning water check.

The solution monitors water supply levels and rainfall, as well as providing alerting notifications to the farmer if any issues arise. This has allowed the Red Hill team to focus on other important tasks on their farm and make educated decisions about what to do next based on the data/feedback they receive from the Farmdeck platform.

Client

Red Hill Farm is located in Barraba, a town 90 kilometres north of Tamworth, NSW, a region deeply affected by the drought after two years without rain (from 2017 to 2019).

Red Hill Farm owner, Luke Bowman and his family have been in the region for over 100 years and are currently third-generation farmers. Luke is now preparing to hand on his 2,400-hectare farm to his three sons. He sees technology as the best way to optimise the farm and their practices before passing it on to the next generation.

Opportunity

Red Hill Farm counts 700 breeding cows, which can each consume up to 200L/day of water. To sustain the cows, the farm has eight water tanks, and up to 50 active troughs at any given time. To ensure their paddocks have enough water and that there are no leaks, a daily water run is required. This task takes roughly two hours out of their morning. Luke felt that the way he and his family had been operating was inefficient and could be improved with technology, particularly addressing their water monitoring challenge.

Solution

To solve the Red Hill water monitoring issue, Outcomex implemented its end-to-end IoT solution, Farmdeck. Utilising various technologies, the solution is composed of sensors installed in the various water tanks and troughs, as well as rain gauges. These sensors gather data that is the transferred to Farmdeck’s user-friendly app, which is accessible on any device from anywhere. This means that water runs are no longer needed as Luke and his family can simply log onto the Farmdeck App and view each water tank and trough and view how much water is in there. This solution has automated one of the instrumental and highly time-consuming daily tasks on the farm.

When asked about how Farmdeck has helped the day-to-day running of Red Hill, Luke stated:

“In the morning I can just get up, check the app, check all my tanks and be satisfied that everything is running well and that just gives us peace of mind, it takes out that hour and a half to 2 hours of doing a water run every day.”

Additionally, through its alerting feature, Farmdeck was able to help Luke when one of his troughs overflowed. When the water volume of a tank or trough goes down quicker than normal, the app sends an alert notification. In this case, the sensor placed in the tank feeding the overflowing trough detected the fast decrease in water volume and sent an alert to Luke.

The quick alert meant they were able to fix the problem before it became a larger issue. This not only allowed them to save time, and conserve water, but it also meant they didn’t have to spend days relocating livestock. 

Technologies Used

Impact

The new access to data and analytics has enabled Red Hill to proactively address their challenges, such as water conservation.

The overflowing trough shows how immensely important these technological advances are, especially considering drought conditions often faced by Australian farmers. By Farmdeck alerting farmers to any changes or emergencies related to their water supply, as well as providing access to data and analytics, Outcomex has enabled Red Hill to become more proactive and efficient in their overall farm management.

About Farmdeck

Farmdeck provides an end-to-end IoT farm management solution to help farmers track and identify livestock, manage water tanks and dams levels and surveillance the perimeter of the property. The analytics and IoT platform designed by Outcomex enables farmers to view their farm’s data anywhere and at anytime.

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