Irrigation companies expand digital partnership to connect 2 million acres
Lindsay Corporation, Omaha, Nebraska, a global manufacturer and distributor of irrigation and infrastructure equipment and technology, and Farmers Edge, Ames, Iowa, a global provider in digital agriculture, announced a plan to connect and digitize two million irrigated acres by the end of 2021.
The companies will integrate their digital platforms to provide their growers and dealer networks with a first of its kind, fully connected crop management solution. The expanded partnership will also focus on a collaboration in data science, machine learning, and AI-driven analytics to deliver precise water-based insights and predictive models.
As part of the strategic initiative, Farmers Edge will provide Lindsay access to both high-resolution satellite imagery and the most comprehensive field-centric dataset available in the industry. Syncing Lindsay’s market-leading irrigation management platform—FieldNET Advisor—with the Farmers Edge fully-integrated, AI-driven farm management platform—FarmCommand—creates an exclusive opportunity for growers to access digital tools that deliver real-time information to control pivots and monitor crop health, along with advanced predictive models to help identify issues, including seeding or application errors, tile drainage, weather damage, pests and disease. The combination of the two digital platforms enables growers to make more informed water management decisions to optimize applications and yield potential.
Adding another layer of connectivity to its suite of solutions, Farmers Edge will provide Lindsay’s FieldNET Pivot Watch—a remote irrigation monitoring solution that includes proprietary IoT sensors that connect to any center pivot—and FieldNET Advisor to help growers better understand when, where, and how much to irrigate.
“This integration of platforms enables growers to use tools like high-resolution satellite imagery to see a visual indication of variation in crop health across a field from the convenience of their laptop or smartphone. The connected farm strategy also enables growers to collect all aspects of field data and feed that information into FieldNET Advisor and FarmCommand. Once that data is collected, the platforms can provide AI-powered insights to ensure the most accurate decisions are being made on the farm,” said Albert Maurin, product manager for irrigation software at Lindsay Corporation.
“At Farmers Edge, we’re focused on creating a digital agricultural ecosystem that’s centered around a fully connected farm. Farmers Edge has thousands of connected machines, weather stations, and in-field sensors across the globe, but we have yet to bring a crucial asset—center pivots,” said Wade Barnes, CEO and co-founder of Farmers Edge.”Having access to FieldNET Pivot Watch is a key component for achieving this goal. The ability to add pivot irrigation data into our unique field-centric datasets, and then move that information into FieldNET Advisor is extremely exciting.”
