Virtual Field Day: AustChilli Smart Farm

Smart farming is a management concept focused on providing the agricultural industry with the infrastructure to leverage advanced technology – including big data, the cloud and the internet of things (IoT) – for tracking, monitoring, automating and analysing operations. The Landcare Australia Smart Farming project has established pilot smart farms for vegetables and avocadoes at Austchilli in Bundaberg, QLD.

The online field day will feature live interviews with Austchilli staff, a demonstration of sensor integrations and activity tracking in Control Tower, an overview of the sensor suite installed at Austchilli, and a preview of automated Freshcare Environmental compliance forms. AusVeg will give an update on the iMapPESTS project and Hort360 will present on Reef Certification. The event will end with an open discussion, where questions from the audience are encouraged.

Control Tower is an integrated sensor agnostic dashboard that allows users to see and manage information from various sensor brands to make decisions and pre-fill compliance forms for Freshcare Environmental. Equipment installed and operating at the Austchilli pilot smart farm are trunk and stem dendrometers, sap flow sensors, soil moisture sensors, weather station, remote cameras, leachate collectors and runoff flumes.