FieldNET with WaterTrend benefits growers with savings

To help farmers avoid waste, Lindsay Corporation has come up an innovative irrigation insight tool called FieldNET with WaterTrend. It gives growers critical crop water usage insights, said Reece Andrews, product manager for Lindsay.

“One of Lindsay’s goals over the past couple of years has been to benefit growers with more information and more data to make irrigation decisions,” he said. “WaterTrend in the culmination of those efforts.”

The new WaterTrend feature provides a seven-day water trend of field-specific crop water needs using forecasted rainfall amounts, crop growth models and crop water usage information. Best of all, Andrews said, is that no extra subscription or equipment is needed – the feature is available to every FieldNET subscriber.

FieldNET is the remote irrigation management platform that allows growers to monitor and control their irrigation systems from their computer or mobile device.

“The whole gamut is centered on water and management of water,” Reece said. “It has a ton of capabilities.”

An inexpensive way to access FieldNET and the FieldNET with WaterTrend feature is by purchasing a FieldNET Pivot Watch device, Andrews said.

FieldNET Pivot Watch is an irrigation monitoring solution that mounts to the pivot pipeline. About half the size of a loaf of bread, the device is battery-powered with a solar panel, making it extremely simple to install, Reece said.

Pivot Watch offers growers real-time reporting on the presence of water and current pivot position, status, direction and speed through the FieldNET platform. Plus, alerts from FieldNET go directly to the farmer via computer, phone or tablet, increasing their ability to make timely irrigation decisions.

The device can save growers money, result in a yield bump and is inexpensive – especially if you lease pivots, Reece said.

“It’s a very powerful tool,” he said. “It pays for itself.”

Growers who utilize and find benefit in the new FieldNET with WaterTrend feature should consider upgrading their FieldNET subscription to include FieldNET Advisor, Andrews said.

“FieldNET Advisor is like the big brother – much bigger brother – to FieldNET with WaterTrend,” he said.

FieldNET Advisor is Lindsay’s irrigation scheduling tool, which offers even greater insights based on field data, cloud-computing capabilities, machine learning and more than 40 years of crop and irrigation research. The solution provides growers with recommendations on when, where and how much to irrigate.

Jon Burleson can be reached at jon.burleson@lee.net.