HawkEye® - new technology to enable smarter farming

Introducing HawkEye®, a set of pasture bench-marking and forecasting tools that will help farmers make smarter nutrient decisions by showing planned versus actual nutrient investments over time

HawkEye®  will integrate three perspectives of pasture production; imagery from the air, nutrient input and pasture quantity on the ground, and diagnostic status of the soil. The technology will be open to every farmer to use.

Bryan Inch, General Manager for Customer Relationships at Ravensdown, said the challenge facing modern farming was to avoid drowning in a sea of data.

“There is already plenty of information being captured and that will only increase into the future. Sensors on irrigators, farm gates, spreading trucks and silos complement wearable technology on animals, soil tests and aerial pasture scanning.

“The difficulty for a farmer is making sense of what all those sensors are telling them and seeing the impact of their decisions. They need to turn information into insight and insight into action,” he said.

Bryan continued, “A map showing soil test results overlaid with the spreading history and pasture response means smarter farming which ultimately results in nitrogen efficiency. Farmers can then use less nitrogen and target the time and place of application. Enhanced nutrient efficiency and pasture productivity is better for the environment and the farmer’s bottom line.”

Mid Canterbury sheep and beef farmer, James McCormick, describes the HawkEye system as giving a simple and easy-to-use view for a farming business:

"You can make better sense of all the data you collect. With more meaningful data, it takes the guesswork out of farming. Seeing what you’ve done in the past and comparing it with what you’re doing now or want to do in the future."

Farmers have greater flexibility to share their data as they see fit. For example, certain data and map elements can be exported to GPS or C-Dax devices and the sharing module enables owners or managers to decide who can see the different areas of the HawkEye farm management information.

Farmers will be able to use HawkEye for:

  • Forecasting available feed
  • Benchmarking pasture production
  • Mapping and monitoring spreading or spraying
  • Monitoring and improving soil fertility
  • Analysing nitrogen efficiency
  • Demonstrating environmental performance
  • Dashboard integration with Agrigate

HawkEye uses Farmax’s Pasture Growth forecasting technology and is fully integrated with C-Dax’s automated controllers.

“With HawkEye farmers will have 24/7 web access, and dedicated support from a team of technical experts” Bryan Inch said.

14 November 2017

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