Future-proofing horticulture in a changing climate

Transcript

Aimee McCutcheon, I'm the Program Manager for Horticultural Services for Agriculture Victoria. We're hosting the day. The day's the Horticulture Field Day and it's about future proofing for changing climate.

It's bringing the horticultural industry from growers, service providers, to associations and government together to discuss the recent conditions that horticultural industry and businesses have experienced and looking towards the future of a profitable and sustainable industry and taking advantage of opportunities while minimising challenges. We've actually heard a number of speakers talk about various topics from what to do when my soil is waterlogged through to how do you predict that changing climate and had some insights into agri tech and how to manage the orchard through these challenging climate conditions. Then we've spent the afternoon out in the Tatura Smart Farm. The Tatura Smart Farm is one of Australia's leading horticultural research centres. It really does provide an integrated approach from orchard fruit right through to the export market and everything in between. And the audience has gone out and looked at the research and the technology that's taking place to manage the orchard and how to better get yield and quality.

It's been a good day. There's been a lot of interaction from industry. There's a real vibe given that it's one of the major events we've held post pandemic. So after this great day, we've got another event to look forward on the horticultural calendar, and it is the International Symposium for Precision Agriculture in early December, and looking forward to hosting that.

Transcript

Autonomous Machinery

Well thank you everybody for coming along. It's a fantastic response to our webinar so far, and I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, which we all meet today, the lands we all meet from today. And I'd like to pay my respects to elders past and present. This webinar is a first in a series of webinars I'm hoping to run on the last Thursday of every month with a timely piece of technology that's relevant to growers within the horticulture space.

But today we're hearing from Cam from Agri Automation Australia with their GO Track system, which is a retrofit system that goes on, that's retrofit auto drive system for existing tractors. And from the US we've got the guys behind the Burro self-driving platform. If everybody can hold onto their questions or post questions in the q and a function, we'll get to all those questions after the presentations. I'd also like to say that we are recording this presentation and hopefully to distribute later. So if you're a bit worried about being able to be recognized, change your name to something, to anonymous. Over to you Cam.

Thank you very much Andy. Much appreciated, the invitation to present on the Ag Victoria webinar and from my side, managing director of Agri Automation Australia we specialize in automation and technology in the AgTech sector. Also like to introduce Chris Thiesene from Burro Agri Automation and Australia and New Zealand as a very proud distributor of the Burro product. And thanks to Chris for staying up late and taking us through the product today. So, take it away, Chris.

All right, so let me give you, let me take one second to share my screen. We'll jump right into it. So, again, cam and Andy, thanks for having me as well to be a part of this. Love every opportunity that we have to talk about Burrow and to kind of showcase what we're doing and how we're being applied around the world, really. So Cam, real quick. Can you see my screen?

Yes. Okay, perfect. All right quick introduction on myself, Chris Thiesene here at Burro .I'm our head of California Sales and Support. However California, we're not limited to California. Cam has and the team both in Australia and New Zealand have come on board and done an excellent job starting to promote and really get the word out and already start lining up orders for the equipment that they have headed their way right now.

My background, I come out of farming, so I grew up in stone fruit, so your peach, plum, nectar, and apricot. Went into construction for a little while, so I got a little bit of logistics and management background. And then I came back to commercial farming where I managed same thing, stone fruit table, grapes, citrus, a little bit of kiwi and persimmon.

From there we were looking to, to get Burrough into our operations, but Burrough was still pretty, pretty young at that time. So right as Covid hit, I hopped on board with Burrow, and it's been an awesome ride. So, moving on. Growing up, kind of one of the main things or some of the main pressures that you would talk about around the dinner table, right, would be water weather and obviously labour. And so the main thing that we're trying to accomplish here at Burro is with the ability to carry things, to tow things, to follow people around while carrying things. You're really able to take away or take away a lot of that non-productive time when you're walking around or moving fruit out of the field or from a tree to a, to a trailer and whatnot. And over the last three years, we're going into our fourth year right now with about 55,000 autonomous miles roughly travelled to date, fleet-wide. We have a couple hundred Burros on the ground with customers now. We're expected to have a few more hundred delivered by the end of the year. And to really accomplish work in the field and autonomy in the field, you really have to have this plug and play solution that is in our terms, popup autonomy. So the ability to take a robot to a field, get a team of six to eight people per robot running with that robot. All really quickly and really rapidly without pre-planning. That's really the name of the game and the goal. And so as you can see on the screen right now, the goal is to get to the point where we can have attachments that hop on or connect onto row as well. So things like a mower we're working on ourselves things like the Bumblebee pollination equipment that, that you saw as well. Those are all things that we're working on and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit, but really we feel like it's the first steps towards more mobility and more autonomy in the field.

Alright, so let me see if this will go to the next slide. There we go. Before we really get into much else, we'll talk about the autonomy or anatomy of the Burro. So we have a touchscreen up at the first or at the front of borough that you're Burro to control to give it cues. Follow you, train a route, things like that. And then you have a top tray with many mounting options. And then inside that brain box, what we call it, you have high power processing where you can only, you can not only use that for the autonomy, but you can also interface with that, with things like dip wise we process their software on board. And I think I have a slide that shows a little bit more of that, about that than it as well. For our connectivity, we have LTE and radio, so the LTEs for all your cell connectivity. And then you have an online dashboard that you can view the fleet and each Burro's stats individually. We have a radio that connects with our RTK-GPS base station, and then we have the RTK-GPS base or GPS unit itself on the Burros so you have that triangulation. Four independent motors, and we have capacity for swappable batteries with our advanced tow package, you have the ability to actually also add four batteries on top and expand your charge time or your run time and your battery capacity, three x. In addition to that, we use cameras for just about everything. So cameras see you, they follow you as you're training a route, they're following you when you're indoors and your GPS denied. The cameras are used to localize indoors to follow a route over and over, and we'll show a little bit more on that as well.

In terms of specs, max payload 500 pounds or 226 kilos roughly. That can be expanded with our Excel kit. So it's about 340 kilos max towing capacity our base model is right around 2000 pounds. And that's also expandable up to about 5,000 pounds with that advanced sow package. Max speed, we're generally traveling right around two and a half miles per hour. I don't know how that translates necessarily to kilometres per hour. But 2.25 meters per second would be kind of the high end standard is about 1.2 meters per second. So kind of your walking space or walking pace.

All right, so how do we do this? So the popup autonomy, if you can see that really little icon down at the bottom that's how we're navigating, that's what's showing up on the screen. So you have a little four arrow icon that you can click. You can manually move it around a little bit. You can put it in person, follow, that'd be the Burro behind the person, and it'll just follow you when you activate that. And you can also just put it in a row and navigate the row. From there that lower right hand corner, there's a little map icon. You can click that and that engages autonomous mode. From there, you have about five slots where you have five slots that you can click. You can train a route on each of those. You can make them run individually or make them run in series. So just like tracks on a CD player, how they're just running through and then they go back and they repeat the whole list. In addition to that, all of those routes can be pushed to the cloud, over cell. They can be named and stored, and then they can be recalled at a later time. So where this is really important is, when we get into nurseries where I might have a route that I'm traveling one day, the next day, I want to do a different route. The next day, another route yet. And so your ability to name and track those, and then be able to recall them late at a later date is really important in how you start to, to move from the pop-up autonomy to the more established guided work. And so as we develop in our, in our product that naming and tagging and organizing of routes, we'll also become more of a guided product as well where you'll have a desktop that you can preplan some of that as well. We follow the rows. We know what a row looks like. Within our training models and within the user interface, you have the ability to select which type of row you're in, which helps the Burro understand, okay, I'm in a table grape row right now, I'm not in a citrus row. Or if you go to a citrus row, then you just change that model. It's all right there on the user interface. And if you look at that little pink and green and yellow image as well, that's how we see and that's how we see and identify what we're trying to follow. So we call it segmentation. So you, you segment the canopy, you segment the edge of the row, you segment the traversable space, which would be that dark purple. And then you have your, your lighter purple, which would be, hey, that's a tote. I know what that is and I can't run into it. So that's how you see and stop for things, especially that grey person there as well. We don't want to hit anyone, so we know what they look like. We'll approach and we'll stop for 'em. We could get into all the other details as well, but, we'll, I think for the sake of time we'll just bump forward.

So, the goal again is to amplify work, amplify people that are working today and try to really drive an ROI on the equipment to then at that point, start saving on the labour that you have in the field. So carrying is really that first, that first task. We can carry stone fruit, we can carry citrus, table grapes, blueberries all of that and as well as other nursery products. And then when you get into the nursery, you start looking at towing. Do we want to replace a tractor? And the time that driver is spending on the tractor, he could do something else. He or she could do something else, be more productive somewhere else, and then we can save that money back on, on the labour sitting on the tractor. Beyond that we also have the ability to patrol a yard. So Burro already knows what people look like. So if it's out and about driving around the yard, why not have that thing send a text notification if it sees a person after hours when they shouldn't be there. In addition to that, if I go back, let me go forward. Let me try to do that again. We've got the ability to dock. So Burro will charge itself and it will make its way back to that dock and charge when it needs to be charged. And then it will resume its path, you know, and it's scouting after it's been charged. That bit of being able to dock and charge when you need is the next thing that ties into the items that we attach to a Burro. So in, in the video that you're seeing on the right, that's a grower that didn't have the people to put on a quad to spread ant bait. He knew that Burro could go row to row. You just put Burro in one row, you send it and it just goes row to row through the field without any pre-planning. In time, you have docking, you have row to row, and you have the ability to do other tasks potentially with that autonomy. So why not pair those two together? And so with that guided work that I kind of talked about before, a lot of that will bleed together and become directed work in the field where you have Burro that charges, it goes to the field, it knows that, hey I made it through 50 rows, I need to return and get a top off. Then from there it'll go and resume, but we're working that direction. We have all of the pieces. Now it's starting to put those pieces together. And again, the purpose of this slide is to really show some of the ROI. But that's all still to be discovered on some of these other use cases. Skip forward to the next.

There we go. So, if you really want to dig into some of the gains that we've seen in blueberries, as an example, we've seen roughly 25% bump in productivity day over day. And that's really between California and Australia. This is randomized data, so you don't know where it came from, but we can show you pretty linearly that, you know, on average we're seeing about 25% bump in gains. The lower percentages, if you look at that percentage column, those lower percentages tend to be your lighter fruit, your lighter crops, where somebody would be walking in and out of the row pretty rapidly anyway, so they wouldn't be walking back and forth, when you're comparing a Burro to a non Burro crew. When you get into the higher percentages, it tends to be your higher volume fruit. So somewhere a field where people would typically be walking a lot, they fill up their buckets, they need to walk out to unload 'em, or they fill up their totes and they need to walk 'em out quite frequently. All of those steps are what we're saving and that wait time at quality control. So if you want to look at blueberries and how they operate as an example, this first little bit is an example of how you can train a route and then share it to the rest of the Burros. The trailer was a ways away. We wanted to get 'em all to the field. So we shared a route. In terms of how blueberries work, typically in California, they weigh their fruit on Burro in the field. They put their tag on the tote, so they're tagged for their piece rate, and then they send Burro back to the trailer. And so for you guys a carriage. And so at that point you have an unloader and a quality control, and those are the two people who are really taking everything off of Burro, accounting for it, loading empties back on and sending it back to the field. And so that picker, not, not the manager, not the crew boss, none of them, but the picker is the one who says, Hey, I'm in this row. I'm going to train Burro to that row. When I get to that row, I'm going to press the forward button and Burro's going to know how to navigate that row. When I'm in the row, it will stop for me. If I don't need it to stop for me, because I don't yet have fruit. I move out of the way and it moves past to the next picker. Whoever needs to, to load it up, just steps out in front of it or reaches out and hits the stop button. Burro stops when they're done loading it back up, they press the reverse button and it's this conveyor belt just coming in and out of the field.

So switching over out of the field and more into nurseries. So nurseries we've seen really two key takeaways. One is carrying, and the other is towing. So in carrying, what we've seen really do really, really well is where growers or where nurseries, sorry, will have conveyor belts that they set up on occasion. That, that conveyor belt, it takes time to set up, it takes time to tear down. It is a consistent motion, so your feed is pretty consistent, but it's also a huge red flag when you, when it comes down to safety audits. Where we have seen the conveyor belt be replaced, we've started to see some really positive results and really solid gains. You're starting to see roughly about 120 day payback just based off of replacing conveyor belts. And that was just in the one process that you're seeing here. When you start to look at some of the other processes where you're going further distances around corners you can start to see roughly the same, better, sometimes a little worse depending on the application. The other thing to note with that is, that what you've seen there, and I'll click it again, this is under roof, so you're totally GPS denied. So Burro's operation, in this case, a hundred percent vision retrace. So this grower has two options. That's a really nice corridor. It's basically a row. They could put it in row, follow and have burrow follow that row. Since they have a little bit of a gap in a vestibule moving across the corridor, it kind of loses that row. So it would stop. So instead they've just trained it. They said, I want to start here. I want to end over there. I'm going to train three or four or five Burros all in that row, and they're just going to keep moving. In addition to that, the guy who's receiving the product at the other end, he can also do other tasks that he otherwise wouldn't. So in the case of some citrus growers, they want to take that plant out of the pot. Put it in a sock, then take that and put it back in the pot. That's an added motion that typically with a conveyor belt, everything's just coming. They're just moving it onto a rack. Now that you have a little bit of play, a little bit of downtime, that person can do another task. In addition, the other guy that's loading, he's also doing other tasks, prepping that, those plants to bring them out, things like that.

And then you get into strawberries. This would be another case where these guys were basically a chain gang, handing plants down the line. Now they don't have to do that. Then to advance past that, our advanced tow package is something that we're really proud of, and it's, it's started we're about three weeks into our first user. It is already proven itself, and it's something that, that we're taking orders for now, for delivery later in the year. With that, that is the three x battery capacity. It's a higher capacity charger, so that charger will maintain, it's about an eight to 10 hour charge cycle standard. When you add the batteries, you need a bigger charger to, to maintain that eight to 10 hour charge cycle. In addition to that, you have LiDAR mounted on top. I'm driving a truck down the freeway with my tractor on the back. I need to look further in advance so that trailer doesn't start wagging me. And so the LiDAR does the same thing, that LiDAR is looking further in advance. I have about 5,000 pounds on the back of Burro so I need to slow much more gradually. LiDAR helps us do that. In addition to that, then you also have counterweights on the bottom, so we can add a little bit of weight to Burro. Helps with stability a little bit. And you can also ballast your tires. So we've got growers and nurseries who have put water in their tire as well.

Tim, how am I doing on time? We okay? All right. I won't spend too much time on, on this one, but basically what we're trying to point towards is our ability to move towards that, that Wally character that we were talking about before. It's kind of a silly pictorial that we use for now versus Wally later. But the goal is to be able to provide the autonomy before you can do any of the dexterity or any of the fancy work that a lot of investment is put into these days, such as crop counting, such as soil monitoring, such as you name it. You first have to have that mobility. So our drive is to have that mobility, then start moving towards all of these other tasks. The ant spreader that I showed you a little bit ago, that was something that was powered off of our auxiliary power. We have a 24 volt unregulated power. You can connect to it, you can step it down to 12 volts, which is what that ant spreader was using. In addition to that, we're in design on a mower. We've done a pre-production with the one that you see here, the little green one. That was just to test the waters, get some feedback from our customers. Now we're chasing it full on. Also taking pre-orders for that. Our tow package, we've already talked about that. That comes with some added autonomy. The added autonomy would be that LiDAR integration. It would also be that the ability to share those routes. Name 'em. Run loops, run loops indoors, run lines indoors, things such as that. And then scouting. We have the ability to scout right now in table grapes with Bitwise, and that's all a turnkey package with Burro. There's a lot of scouting companies out there as well that all you need to do is put whatever that piece of equipment is on top of Burro and let it run through the field row to row. Green Atlas would be a perfect example of that. We have a customer here in the States up in Washington called Innovate, and Steve Mantle has been doing some awesome job, an awesome job working with Green Atlas pairing Burro with Green Atlas. We don't know each other in terms of an agreement or a relationship, but our autonomy and our solution work really, really well together. And then Bumblebee and Bloom X would be another example of that. So moving past that. Really to reiterate that last slide and to show a few examples. The image on the lower left for the video on the lower left is it is that Burro plus Green Atlas solution. But then also on the back is a soil optics rig. So he's doing two things at one time. He is counting fruit, he's also scanning his soil for dexterity or texture all of those different things. And then the video on the right is Bloom X. So it's a bio mimicking pollinator that as you travel through the field, it's vibrating to, to replicate the vibration of a, of bumblebee's vibrations as it flies, and that's in essence something to help with pollination. Earlier reports that we're hearing from Bloom X is roughly 10 to 30% bump in productivity in the trials that they've run this last year.

And then from there, really this is kind of a key goal for us. You have so many robots, so many different applications that we really feel that autonomy and mobility autonomously is an answer to a problem. The challenge though, with a lot of groups that come in, a lot of projects that come in and try to address problems is that they require change on the back end or not on, not on the back end. On the front end for the grower. We don't want to do that. We want to come in, we want to slot into a production system that's already in place, and that's what we've really proven that we've been able to do. Table grapes haven't changed their planting. Stone fruit doesn't change its planting. Citrus doesn't change its planting and nurseries are permanent structures that we have to slot into. So the goal is to take that autonomy, make it something that's approachable and put it into environment that already exists without having to saw cut and put varied lines in the ground or pre-planned to any extent.

So beyond that's really it. So I think we'll have a q and a at the end. Again, Cam, thanks for having me on. And looking forward to some questions and I wish. Thanks very much, Chris. Hand over to you. There you go.

Thanks very much. Chris was very interesting and as you say, look forward to seeing question answers. If you've got any questions that's you want to pop in immediately, feel free to drop 'em in the right hand side and the q and a tab. Cam, are we taking those questions now or at the end? We'll take them at the end, Chris. Okay, great.

So again, thank you everyone for joining. Cam Clifford, for those who joined the little late. Cam Clifford managing director of Agri Automation in Australia. We're part of the many of you would know me and we are part of the AME group with the background in mechanical equipment and vineyards and horticulture across Australia. I trust everyone can see a screen. Yep. Looking good. Thank you. So I'm pleased to present the GOtrack technology, which is part of the Agri Automation portfolio. We've been working with GOtrack for a number of years now in the automation space driving profits without driving the tractor. To introduce GOtrack, it's a technology developed and based out of Poland, EU. They're a very grower focused team in, in the GOtrack company. They are probably not what we know as the atypical ag tech startup, but more working from a practical development perspective. All of the key members of the team have a background in horticulture or viticulture, and a lot of their testing and refinement is completed on their own farms throughout their technology. So from a, from a productivity and practicality of operation perspective, we see the GOtrack product is something where it goes into the field and practically works for growers as opposed to coming from an ag tech or a technology space where you feel like you need an engineer to operate it.

So the GOtrack range throughout their product range, we have their vision steering system, which is what we call a Lin Assist Pro. We have the GOtrack Auto Drive, which is the full autonomous solution. We also have the e-spray computer, and we have the remote control function, which allows us to operate a tractor while the person's beside the tractor, but maybe on a planter or a, some something like a platform. Line Assist Pro. Line Assist Pro is a automatic steering system simplified. It works with infrared camera technology. It steers precisely without needing a GPS-RTK or cellular connection. So there's no need for route mapping or any pre-work. It is truly plug and play type operation. So the infra camera assesses and adjusts to the rowing canopy conditions, whether it's vineyard as we see it in this video playing here on the right hand side or in orchard conditions. This can be set up to operate in the middle or centre of the row, or it can be offset to the left or right side for functions such as hedging or under tree mowing. As we can see in the video here, this operator is working at a speed of around nine kilometres an hour in quite sprawled vineyard conditions without touching the steering wheel. So the system activates as you go into the row, either automatically or it can be manually activated as you see the operator touch the button on the left hand bottom corner of the video. The system then switches to full control of the steering until it exits the row when it releases the steering for the operator to complete the turn, and as they re-enter the row, they can either manually activate or the system can reactivate a definable number of seconds after it's re-entered the row. Where we see use for this technology is to enable the operator to focus on their task at hand. But whether it's under tree, under vine, mowing, spraying, whatever it may be, if you're having issues with driver concentration, driver fatigue, sprayer damage, anything where the operator needs to maintain complete vision across the machine, the steering system allows 'em to do so. Again, it can be fitted across any tractor might make and model, and it is a very non-obstructive system. So what we see in this video, the small box here along with the steering control on the centre of the wheel and some steering sensors with the camera on the front of the cab, is all the system consists of. So it is, it can be stepped back into and operated as it was before.

The applications for this type of technology is in trimming and pruning, slashing and mulching, spraying, and really any task that requires focus on the task at hand rather than staring in a straight line or between the rows.

It's one thing that's very unique about GOtrack is they are focused completely on permanent tree and vine crops as opposed to most autonomous or steering systems are largely focused on more broad acres or intensive horticulture for such as vegetable growing. Whereas the GoTrack system, their entire development is based on permanent tree and vine crops.

GOtrack auto drive. It is the most advanced system for autonomous tractor operation available commercially in the market today. We have a number of units operating throughout the Australian market and New Zealand market with 50 plus units working throughout Europe.

The system is very simple and intuitive in its operation. You simply drive once to record the path on the computer, and then from there, the attractor in the system will do the rest. Each path is saved as a separate name program, so it's then easy to pick the program for each day's plan tasks by the easy to use interface. The screen we see on the top right hand corner is the screen we see in the cab, like we know up from a standard spray controller in this industry. What you see on the below is the app that's used to activate and to monitor the GOtrack Auto Drive system. So from this we can see our path, what's been completed, what's to be completed. If it's in spraying mode, we can see the spray rate that's been applied, the spraying pressure, and how many litres are left in the tank. We can also start and stop from this app.

Here. We'll show you a quick video that gives you some overview of the safety systems that are included with the GOtrack Auto Drive system. This video is courtesy of our team and partners, Agri Automation New Zealand. So thank you for the video.

Now. Perfect. Yeah, sorry about that. Multi levels of safety on this machine. On the roof we have a obstacle detection camera. It comprises of two infrared cameras on the outside and an RGB camera in the middle, which uses artificial intelligence to detect humans and objects such as vehicles and animals that might run past the machine.

On the front we have a LIDAR sensor, which is very good at detecting hard objects or. Anything that might get in the way. And then the last line of defence is the bump stop, which you should never, should never need, but it'll immediately cut off the tractor at the moment that bump stop gets hit, and on the side there you'll see a couple of e stops, which is another way you can stop the tractor. So there's four levels of, of safety on the machine.

Okay, so recording a route is really easy. You just press routes, go add, we're going to do a route. And then once we press start, it'll remember everything that the operator does. So from now you can lift the hitch up or down or just simply drive off. So I'll show you what that does, and it's dropping bread crumbs and remembering exactly where you drove and exactly what you're doing. So if we lifted the hitch up at the end of a row, it'll lift the rear hitch up. And then once you finish your path, you basically press finish. Give the route a name, press save, and then you've got the saved route. So there you go. Go back in there. Choose test that we just did select and there's our route, and away you go. To start the tractor, you simply go into the app, press start, slide to confirm. The tractor will do a few checks, and after about five seconds, it'll, it'll take off.

So why GOtrack Auto Drive? The GOtrack Auto Drive is designed for simple intuitive tasks such as spraying, slashing, and mulching, designed to free you up to focus on difficult tasks where human intuition is required, such as pruning, mulch, under underlying work where it requires someone to take notice and to work around tree structures and so forth. It's overcoming staff shortages, also overcoming night spraying and so forth. The system can operate in all conditions. It is the only system commercially on the market today, which works with your existing tractor. It works with both avario transmissions and manual transmissions. So we have the system currently working today on Kubota and Fendt, New Holland and other tractors. You can control and monitor the auto drive from your phone. And as mentioned, it enables safer night driving or night operations. The auto drive retrofit kit components, so on top we have the obstacle detection camera, we have the GPS and 10 a array on the top of the cab. We have a steering control inside the cab.

The screen, like we noticed earlier in the video, we have a brake in clutch activator, an RPM regulator. On the front we have the front bumper and LiDAR system. We have emergency stops on the left and right of the tractor and on if we have an implement such as a sprayer and yes, you can see a small blue wireless box here which controls the sprayer or sends signals back from the implement to the control system.

As mentioned from a safety system, we have two. We have an infrared camera and RGB camera mounted on the roof of the cab. That can also give us a live video feed or take images of any obstructions to send back to the app. With the infrared camera, it also has an element of AI in there to detect people and other objects in front of the machine. Obviously, things obstructions like people are a much higher priority for avoidance than basic structure for a safety reason.

So in the GOtrack range, we have the GOtrack Auto Drive as we've just gone over. The GOtrack Line Assist Pro and the eSpray Pro for advanced spray control. On the front here, we see the LiDAR, the bump stop, and emergency buttons. We have a short video here.

So the system is suitable for many makes and models of tractors. These can be assessed as required. And that finishes the presentation. And thank you for everyone and we can back to you, Andy, for q and a.

Yeah, no, thank you both Chris and Cam. That was awesome. So I'm, yeah, truly impressed in trying to work out how I can get a Burro to, I don't know I've no idea what I would have any use for it, but just having one would be fantastic. So q and as, we haven't got any yet, but I'm sure there's questions out there. So if you've got a question, stick it in the chat or in the q and a section, if you've got something really long that you want to talk about, let me know and I can have a go at unmuting you.

There is one that, there is one there for Chris on the Burro.

Okay. How does it perform in tree rows that are bumpy and not perfectly straight? And what if there are weeds or a row crop? So there's upper limits to everything depending on how bumpy your, your rows are. You're going to have some issues but if it's relatively smooth the occasional bump here and there, I mean, we've run in, I wish I could show you a few videos of Burro tracking through mud where you've had drippy, a leaky irrigation line. We do make it through some of those scenarios. But again, there's some upper limits to that. Same thing with weeds and cover crops in particular. Generally, I mean, Burros only doing what it can see, so if there's something that is occluding its vision it's not going to have the ability to navigate that. So I hope that answers your question. I don't have specific inches or size of bumps or things like that. One thing that you can do to improve some of the stability is you can go to an XL kit, so you lengthen and widen your wheel base. So as an example in, in citrus we've, we did this in, in Sumo harvest. And they were able to put 750 pounds of totes. So that's 30 totes. It's pretty tall. I believe that actually showed in one of those videos as well. So when you go back and you, and you get this presentation, pay attention to that, that citrus video that shows up. Yeah, hope that answers that. That's good.

Thanks Chris. Also one on the price, question on the price for auto drive and line assist. So the auto-drive system is on a subscription basis here in Australia and New Zealand. So the broad spectrum pricing for an install of auto drive to attract it is approximately four to $5,000 depending on make and model of tractor. And from there it is 3,700 per month subscription, which includes all software and hardware updates into the future. Line Assist Pro. Again, subject to the tractor make and model, but between 27 and a half and 32,000 as a capital purchase for Line Assist Pro. One of the other questions was, is it cheaper or easier to retrofit tractors with ISO buss? Right now, today, it really makes no difference to us whether it has ISO bus or not. It does, however, enable a little bit more information to show on the screen if the tractor has ISO bus. Okay. Excellent.

There's also more questions in here. One of the questions was for the borough financial calculations, that was in US dollars. Correct. That was in US dollars. Yep.

And one of the other questions is when we, when might be we be able to see a Burro at work in New Zealand? I think you can answer that. Yeah, so I think there's, there is units on their way right now to New Zealand and we can loop you in with a team from Agri Automation New Zealand who can hook you up. They will be running some demonstrations throughout different regions and industry in New Zealand. So we can connect you later on with the team out of New Zealand. I believe the first ones arrive pretty quick, maybe a week to two weeks out.

There is a question about the permits for self-driving machinery and regulations if there are any.

Yeah, that's good. Sorry. I set up on the no there is, right now in Australia and New Zealand there is no current legislation related to autonomous operations, so no permit is needed. However, that said, it is up to duty of care for an operator the same as we operate today with machinery. So the system or all autonomous systems are not designed that you should set them going and head to town for the day. It is supervised autonomy. One of the advantages of the GOtrack Auto-Drive system is it is designed from a drive and repeat system rather than a Map type system.

Yeah. And there is just one more question that's popped up in the chat, which is about, so Cam, in your experience, how many units can one person oversee with the Go Track Pro?

Yes, thanks Andy. So the answer to that is probably subject to what task has been taken, something where you require to refill, for instance, a sprayer. We see the limit is probably somewhere around three to four units. Again, if that is something more simple like slashing or mulching where the task is simpler and it's not required constant service, then that number could be increased. However, how we see the intention to deploy multiple numbers of units in a spray operation is the units themselves don't necessarily leave the spraying field. They're then serviced, serviced by a nurse cart, which increases the efficiency. So, substantially.

Just double check the q and a. So, just I've got a quick question. What kind of feedback does, is transferred back to the operator like on the tablet or the phone that they're using while the tractor's going around? Does it give them location information if there's an issues or..., yes, that's good question, Andy. So from, you can at any time look at the app and see where the unit is operating. From a Google Maps perspective, you can see it operating in the field. You can see its current speed, its current spraying rate. If it's spraying how many litres left in the tank, how many kilometres or meters left in its path, how many meters or kilometres the original path was. If the auto drive system comes across an obstacle, it will then send a message to the operator on the app or on SMS and say, here's my location. I'm stopped for this reason. And now we are seeing a photo of the obstacle getting transferred to the app as well.

Okay, cool. And is that similar for the Burro Chris? It gives you a bit of feedback on what's, what's going on when it's, while it's out and bound? Yep. So for everyone on the call, when you go back and you receive the this presentation, if you look, there's the slide that has all the different icons that kind of describes the autonomy. There's a little teeny icon that shows our dashboard, our online dashboard. And so whether it's your full fleet or just an individual Burro you can really drill down into where Burro is, what distance it's travelled, what has it been carrying a heavy load or not. So there's some, some correlation to draw on the batteries all the way down to CPU temperature, and all of our stats. That's all available on that dashboard.

Yeah. Cool. So you've got two quick, two good ones. One is about insurance. If you guys have come across that. Cam, is that something that you've had? So I think the question is, yeah, does an insurer still cover or cover an autonomous machine? Yes. There, there is dependent on the insurer. Some insurers are more advanced in their cover of this type of equipment. Again, to repeat the GOtrack system in the sense that is a drive and repeat type system rather than a map system, makes quite a large difference in this respect because it's not a desktop type operation where someone hasn't been in the field. The GOtrack auto drive is two centimetres accurate and it will, beyond 30 centimetres off its path, it will immediately stop and send an alert so it can't leave its path. So from, from a safety perspective, that is a much safer operation than a sense where a path is mapped out from a desktop where they're not necessarily aware of the conditions or obstacles in the field, which it might come across.

Yeah. Cool. And so then from, Ben's got a question and is what are the, in regards to spiderwebs, et cetera, growing throughout the season, can that interfere with either equipment? So it's come down to the camera? Yeah, that's good. That's one of the major steps for the system has made in the last six months is moving to the extra cameras and the obstacle detection system because it's allowed us to reduce the reliance on the LiDAR camera, which has then enabled us to work in multiple canopy conditions. So it's especially seen when we think about a operation such as fruit growing, where your canopy structure changes majorly through the season with the fruit load coming on the branches and then dropping down into the row and causing that obstacle. Earlier in the piece we should say earlier in our trials, we, we seen that causing an obstacle for the LiDAR camera system. But now with the with the new cameras mounted on there, we're not seeing that the same as what we've seen in the Line Assist Pro system.

So to speak on the Burro, from the Burro perspective, we have not yet been in a scenario where you have webs that basically form a cape over your equipment. I've been in those fields and it's, it's pretty crazy. But in typical harvest situations you don't have that as an issue. At the same time as we get down into other tasks throughout the season where you're not in normal harvest season, it's fall. There's a lot of spiders out. We just haven't been in that scenario yet. But similar to what Cam was describing Burro would, if it's view as occluded, it's going to stop. And if, if it's in an autonomous application it, it will be sending a text notification to whoever needs to, to come rescue it, say, to clear off the webs. In addition to that, things like canes or branches or, or vines hanging down in, in, in the models that we have trained in and run in really frequently, Burro knows what that vine looks, coming down looks like, and it knows that to an extent it can traverse through that safely. Particularly if it's not, you know, occluded by a lot of vines, just totally breaking, its vision.

You got two. But to continue with you Chris, there is another question from Chris who's looking to go really big, because he'd like to know what are the maximum number of Burros that he can work, can work collaboratively.

There is no limit. So, basically so in terms of typically crews are running about six Burros per crew, and that's six to eight people per crew. That's one base station that everything is, is running off of. If your base station is high enough and has enough visibility to other Burros around it, it, there's no limit to how many Burros can relay and localize off of that base station. In terms of how many you can send routes to and have them follow and do the same route or the number of routes that you've catalogued, same thing. There's no, there's no limit to that.

Cool. And then back to you Cam, in the q and a, there is a question in regards to, could you elaborate on the spray pro model? What, what is added functions and then is this an add-on or different system entirely. Is it compatible with all sprayers or only AME sprayers? Wait, just unmute as well.

Thank you. So the e spray model is included in the auto drive in respect that that controller is a full auto rate controller in manual mode as well. It has added functions such as starting and stopping the spray nozzles autonomously. So at the ends of rows and so forth, it can change that. There's a number of functions that can push up to a spray recording program as well. It's probably getting fairly technical to dig right into it here, but feel free to reach out directly and we can go through some extra details. It is compatible with all sprayers, not only AME or FMR sprayers.

Cool. I'll just quickly click did you see the one there for Chris there, Andy? The maximum. Yeah, that's the one. Sorry, I've been jumping around. What was that one? Fuel use. So, we have a question in regards to any Oh yeah. Fuel use is do you see in between the normal running of a tractor in the same environment as with a GOtrack, is there any fuel efficiencies to using such a system? Not really. At the end of the day the system is operating the same as the operator would. The biggest saving for operating autonomous, autonomously is of course the labour saving and the, yeah, efficiency saving have been able to double up. What we are seeing is this task where they are quite a seasonal task, we are seeing operations able to reduce their overall staff count because they're not needing to step it up throughout the growing season, because they can deploy a GOtrack auto drive in this situation.

Yeah. Fantastic. I'll just, while we're see if any other questions come through, I'm just going to, oh...

Actually Andy, could I speak to that last one real quick as well? Yes, definitely. And we have another question as well yeah, cool. We don't have specifics on necessarily how much fuel is consumed in the typical harvest scenario where we're replacing tractors, pulling trailers, which would be like sumos. But for a comparison, if you're looking at number of acres that maybe you can cover in a day with a Burro, your cost per day to operate is roughly 62 cents USD per day, and that's taken off of some California pge rates. So that maybe gives you, I mean, it, you're under a dollar a day basically.

Cool. So there's one, one question in the Q and A, which is, we have a GOtrack system on a Kubota. Is Assist a feature that this or, is line assist a feature with this, or we'd need to add it to the system? I'm, yeah. That's cool. I do understand that one. And we can, so the Line Assist is a separate system currently. It is in their development pathway to have an integrated line assist in the, add to the auto drive system. But right now it is two separate systems.

Okay, cool. I'm gonna just take a moment while if we're, if everybody's thinking about any new questions, I'll just see if it refresh it again. So this is the first of series of webinars that I'm hoping to put together. So, everyone please keep an eye out for future and announcements about them. And the next one is on the 27th of July, which is from the onside guys and they have some software that helps growers meet OH&S and compliance requirements.

But thank you guys so much for your time and presenting. It's been awesome. I've got tons out of it and heaps of ideas and I'm sure everybody on the line has also got a whole bunch of yeah, thoughts on where they can optimize their properties and yeah, work practices.

So thank you both very much. That's good. Thank you very much, Andy. Just as a note, this will be recco, this has been recorded and link will be sent to everyone that attended, is that correct, Andy? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we'll be making this and if you guys are comfortable, I might get a PDF version of presentations that, or some further information we can distribute. There was a couple of people who asked about that early on.

Transcript

Thank you all for attending today's webinar. First of all, I'd like to begin by acknowledging the nutritional owners of the land on which we are meeting from today. I'd also like to pay my respects to elders past and present. This, webinar is part of a series called Future-Proofing Horticulture in a Changing Climate.

We started the year off in March with a field day at Tatura which got washed out at the end, and so we've extended that, throughout, and we're going to be having these monthly webinars to continue the kind of legacy of that field day forward. Today we are looking at the issue of keeping track of visitors who come onto your property and the associated biosecurity and OH&S risks that are associated with that. So with that we've got Sam Elder from Onside, and as well, we've got Rose Daniel from AUSVEG who will be presenting and discussing these issues and how they, how these guys have tackled them together. Once we've heard from these guys then we'll probably have a, that we will have the Q&A session, so please stick your, any questions you have as we are going through in the Q&A function and then, and then we'll get to them at the end there. Also, just wanted to let everybody know we are recording this session, so just keep that in mind when, yeah. So thank you guys and I'll hand over to you Sam.

G'day everyone, thank you for joining us today. I'm going to share my screen in a moment and take you through a short presentation on Onside and what we're doing within the biosecurity space, both in Australia and also in New Zealand. And then I will introduce Rose and we will speak about a project that AUSVEG and Onside have within the biosecurity space, and we'll also have Mike Fielding join us, who is the CEO of Boratto Farms in Bacchus Marsh, and he will give some insight into their use of technology for biosecurity and food quality reasons and just the general sort of practical thinking behind where technology like can really benefit producers in this space.

Please send through questions as we go. I might see them come through and we'll cover them as I speak. However, we will get to them at the end and we'll have a bit of a Q&A as well, so you can ask questions of myself, of Rose, and also of Mike.

Great, so I'll share my screen now. Onside is a app-based farm management tool. It actually started in New Zealand and was the brainchild of a dairy operations manager. So, our founder grew up in the dairy industry and he was managing a number of properties and found that there was just real challenges with managing people across all those businesses, but also real opportunity to tighten up OH&S, biosecurity and other operational processes by digitizing how they happen.

So with that, Onside has worked very hard to create an application that's as user friendly as possible so that compliance is as high as possible. They really are that sort of toolkit in your pocket and it's using phone technology and then the ongoing data that's collected from people just doing their job day to day to do other really special things around biosecurity and compliance.

Now we're gonna be speaking about the biosecurity part of things here today. But we also do help a lot within OH&S and other areas. So Onside intelligence is actually our, very new and interesting product that is all to do with biosecurity tracking and tracing. Now we have an on-farm element to it, but also an industry-wide element as well, which I'll take you through.

Like I said, Onside that toolkit in your pocket and we cover off a number of areas and the aim is to digitize your day-to-day operations so that all of that data that's collected just from doing your job can then be used later on in really valuable and time saving ways. When it comes to the actual usage of Onside, the power comes from the network and so you need properties to be mapped, people to be checking in to properties and all of that activity going on so that you can then collect that information to, to use later on. So, I'll show you very briefly on my phone what I'm talking about in terms of what you're able to do with smartphone technology these days. So, when it comes to the actual application, I'm just starting to broadcast my phone screen. There we go. Great. So here within the app we have an orchard mapped out, so combination of digital maps, also with digital boundary mapping and other tools, we're able to create a digital footprint around properties so that when someone arrives at that property and they've got the app on their phone, they'll be reminded to check in just as you would do these days with a paper logbook. And then when they're checking in, they're able to agree to all of those terms and conditions that are needed to actually come onto a property. Now these are biosecurity requirements and also OH&S requirements. So, as I step through, we're able to collect answers to questions and act on those answers as well. So by incorporating phone technology, mapping technology, and all of the powers that those include, you're able to create a data footprint of what's going on around your property. So with that, we then put all of that information in people's pockets as well. So you've got both safety information and jobs that need to be done on the property.

Now, that's the app part of it, and we designed that to be user friendly and really valuable for people to use on the property so that they actually check in because they need it to get what they need to do, done. But what that does from a biosecurity tracking point of view is, there we go, is creates a network of mapped properties and then allows us to collect that data of movement around those mapped properties and surface that to industry bodies and government so that they can see the trends and patterns of people's movement. So you can see here that you've got contractors and suppliers that'll be moving between multiple properties at once. You've got the individual farms, orchards and vineyards that they're moving between. And then you're also gonna have third party data, say food, sorry, say fruit crates or the movement of vehicles, or livestock between properties as well. So with the collection of all of that, we're able to then map out when someone moves from one property to another, which then creates a network of movement between multiple properties and that gives amazing insight into the risks that are present within a geographical area or within a particular industry of actually where the bottlenecks of movement of people are so that we can work with government on targeting areas for tracing and tracking biosecurity incursions. But we can also work with industry on dealing with and responding to incursions that have taken place. So with that network, we get wonderful insight, and you can see here that there's multiple ways of visualizing that insight, either from direct movement or heat mapping, or even having regional response plans based on where exposure sites are.

Now a good example of us actually trying out this particular program was a partnership between new South Wales Wine, the Department of Primary Industry in New South Wales, and also the Southern New South Wales Innovation Hub. So what we did, there is, got a region of wine growers, sorry, of vineyards, in and around orange to all start using Onside for checking in visitors, for a nine month period, and then collected all of that information and data and used that in a, they called it a war game in terms of biosecurity. So that involved two days where on the first day the Department of Primary Industry, put together a team and did a simulated response to a, phylloxera outbreak within a particular vineyard. So they war gamed the scenario. They went around, draw the five km radius around that farm, interviewed people and did all the stuff that they currently do to try and respond to a known incursion. That was day one. Day two, they used the data that had been collected over the previous nine months, and it was astounding how deep their understanding of the actual risks to the area were once they were able to actually see the movement of people. So their current operation is to draw a five km radius around a vineyard and then respond and interview, and then subsequently broaden their search. With the info from Onside and the use of check-in, they were able to see that a contractor had travelled almost 300 Kms from one area to another. So their exposure zone was way bigger than they ever thought. And you guys would all you know, feel that's a no-brainer, but to actually have the data to show where that exposure was, is incredibly powerful for responding to outbreaks like that.

Now, we've got projects with multiple peak bodies and government departments between New Zealand and New South Wales. Oh, sorry, Australia. But it's our partnership with Ausveg that is of interest to you guys today, and that's why Rose has come along to today's session is to give some context around what we'll be doing with Ausveg and the scope of the project and what it'll mean for growers like yourselves in and around both Victoria and more broadly around Australia. So with that, I will jump in and introduce Rose to the group. You may have met her before at a number of other events or conferences. But let me just stop sharing my screen and we'll have a chat with Rose. So thanks Rose. Can you just explain to the group a little bit about your role with AUSVEG?

So I'm one of two farm biosecurity coordinators at AUSVEG as part of the Vegetable and potato Farm biosecurity program that's run through Plant Health Australia. So the other biosecurity coordinator is Shakira Johnson, who I think is also online. So our role is to put it fairly simply, is to improve the implementation of farm biosecurity practices to help reduce the risk of spread of pests and diseases onto farms and to make sure that those farm businesses are prepared in the event of an incursion. I guess the better the biosecurity practices, the better prepared those farms should be. We also work with government and researchers and other industry participants to make sure that the industry's prepared. So it might be research to understand certain pests better and have control measures in place to make sure that we can respond more effectively in the event that there is an incursion. Yep. Great. For, for the audience today, so within, the horticulture industry, like what, if you feel in your gut, like what's the biggest biosecurity challenge today at the moment? What does it look like? What's the thing that you're worried about?

I think this is such a massive question with so many different answers. It's, yeah, look, it's incredibly broad and it could be quite political. But I think some of the most important bits, I guess parts for growers, is to make sure and us as the industry body is to make sure that we've got the skills and the science available that's underpinning their practices, that growers can implement and our ability to respond to incursions there, and I think some of these are not just challenges, but there are opportunities, there's so much new technology available now that we can do this in a more effective way. Things like surveillance, making sure that we're conducting good surveillance so that we can detect pests and pathogens more quickly and respond more quickly. Making sure that we've got processes in place and frameworks in place to enable growers to continue their businesses. Business continuity so that they're not raising money when there are incursions in place, underway. And continuing to build those partnerships between the growers and the industry bodies and the researchers and government. So yeah, it's massively broad and I'm sure everybody on that's on this meeting could, if it give you another answer to that. So a lot of challenges, but I think even just improving the uptake in biosecurity. It's such a horrible word sometimes, just improving the uptake and making biosecurity part of people's everyday practices is probably the most simple thing, that it's not scary and it's not awful. It's just part of what you do. Like you don't leave a band aid lying around in your house. So it is a bit like that on a farm, you clean up and make sure you've got good hygiene and sanitation practices, and it's just a normal thing to do.

Yep. Cool. Yeah, good answer to a broad, complex question. You mentioned it's not a nice question to have to answer, but Yeah. No, it's massive. It's big. So anyway.

Yeah, good one. You mentioned technology and the role it plays. Look, today we're talking tech. What is it that, that sort of brought together, that, that AUSVEG and Onside project, and what does that project look like?

I've only been with AUSVEG for four months, so this all started before I joined. But, I think, when I first started with AUSVEG, Onside was involved in their Victorian vegetable innovation days and helped us, it was organized by AUSVEG Vic. But, help to, at the entrance point, we implemented biosecurity measures, so people needed to walk through foot baths and, where normally or frequently you would see a paper registration slip, we had Onside, had their app there and it was much easier to see who was coming onto site and probably provided some reassurance for those growers that were hosting the field events that they knew where people were coming from and if something did happen that there's the potential for traceability. I think the, I don't know the history of Onside and AUSVEG but from my perspective, there's, it makes it easier to have this kind of format to sign in visitors and one of the, so I guess in the AUSVEG biosecurity space, we've identified a number of risk pathways by which pests and diseases could come onto farms. And one of those risk pathways, or a couple of those are, vehicles, staff visitors, sorry, staff visitors to farms. So your, seed reps and all those kind of service providers that come onto farms. And the attractive thing about Onside is that it's, and these kind of apps is that it's provides not only the ability to register who's coming onto the farm, but also there's an opportunity to include into that sign on procedure, a couple of points about what the farm's practices are and what you need to abide by when you're coming onto farm. And that takes away some of the tediousness of doing that in person or, if you are not on site, you can still make sure that people understand what you need to do when you're coming onto that site, whether it be, are you parking in our, allocated parking, have you washed your boots, have you done this, where have you been? And so on. Whatever the farm's practices are. So I guess that's the attractive thing and that's what going forward, what some of the, the project that AUSVEG and Onside will be working on will be to incorporate that kind of farm biosecurity planning into the visitor registration processes.

Yep. Okay. Great. Great. Now, we've got Mike who has hopefully sorted out his mic, mike things. I can. Good work. I amaze myself sometimes. Yep. No, it's good. You weren't speaking first up. Could have been a bit of a challenge, but No. All good. So Mike is here. He's the c e o with Boratto Farms in Bacchus Marsh, and Boratto Farms has, look, you've probably gone through a bit more, more thinking than we necessarily know about the tip of the iceberg with your engagement with Onside, but you've started using technology for that biosecurity and food quality side of things. So I guess, can you talk us through what challenges you guys were facing and where you see technology stepping in? So technology like Onside and that sort of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. So clearly as mentioned, like biosecurity is a major issue, and we were looking to protect not only the industry but protect ourselves. So in a previous role, I was National supply manager for a large salad processor in Australia and I know and have seen firsthand the where of supply that is out there. And therefore, I think the protection is both for fellow members in the industry and also for growers, farmers as an individual entity. We're also looking through that source, we were lucky because Onside was used at the International Spinach Conference, which we hosted the trials day. So we were able to see how Onside worked and how easy it was for people to sign in and how that information was collectible. So from a technology point of view, we're looking at how we can improve efficiency and time management. How we can improve the tasks we do. And then par that will help us with the, the ever-growing buzzword, which is carbon footprint calculations. So we feel that we'll also be able to use that from a sustainability point of view. So we get a biosecurity, we get the sustainability point of view, the carbon footprint, and also we feel these days there's a certain element of detachment from the office to the people outside, because it, as farming progresses and becomes more data-driven, there's that kind of separation. So we feel that Onside this kind of facility helps improve the connection with all the two ICs, all the management team, all of that. The operators have that. The casual staff obviously sign in when they go to the sites. We have that. That creates that link and that attachment. What people are doing, how they've achieved what they've achieved. And it also allows reporting as well back. So it's a good use of technology because if somebody sees something, a fence may be broken, or irrigation, upstanding may be not working, rather than have to drive all the way back, which paradoxically could increase biosecurity issues, they can just do it on the app and just let management know, or the appropriate people know that can get repaired. And then once that's repaired, that can be actioned. So you're creating a bit paradox as well. You're creating a better link with the office by not having to go with the office as much like it. So we find that as well. So they're all things that we're looking at and we're also looking to get away from paper driven systems if we can. We're Fresh Care, Fair Farm's, audit compliant. But a lot of that is a, there's a lot of work in that. And if we can get into a more data-driven paperless system, that's what we're looking at. I'd also say Onside, like I say, we had the trial for the spinach, International Spinach Conference. We also like technology if we can be reasonably early into it, early adopters, because it allows us opportunity to maybe influence how we'd like to see that develop for our own particular circumstances. And our particular circumstances will also match up with majority of baby leaf and whole head supplies in Australia.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing I hear as I speak to growers is the number of systems that they're using. So there's always a number of different systems. What other technology are you guys using for that food quality side of things?

Food quality side. I mean me, my colleague here, Abby, really? because she does all our foods, but we tend to, it tends to be that kind of, as I say, we're Fair farms, Fresh Care, audited so it tends to be that gathering of information through there. Yep. But there is a detachment there, because some of that happens post situation almost. Whereas with the Onside thing we can find, you can take a photograph of harvest at that particular time. Keep a record of that information and quality that leaves circumstances of harvest. What was the weather like, et cetera. And all of that creates a non-paper based and live system that helps us with our food safety and technology. And then the other stuff that we are looking at, we're looking at mechanical and the laser weeding for the field, which also captures data. So that allows us to deal with predominantly weeds, but that'll log all that data about the crop and it'll also give you early insight into pest and disease problems that may be occurring. Yep, that'll all link in. So it, it is just creating a link and getting away from tick boxes and sheets and that. So that's what we're trying to do because I'll give everybody more credibility then. Yep. No, good one. Good one. Now I can see, I'll see whether in the chat, any questions have come through. But they're open.

I've got a question if I can interrupt, which just occurred to me while you about the New South Wales DPI wine industry project that you had. Yep. And one of the, I noticed a lot of the industries that have perennial crops that you know, are in the trees that are in the ground for many years, have been mapping their, where their orchards or farms are, and one of the things I've noticed with vegetables, and not, probably not so much where you are Mike, a lot of vegetable farms, vegetables obviously being an annual crop, they, some of their growers will lease land in around the place and there, so their farm isn't stuck as much as it might be in a fruit tree farm, it's an orchard or something. And so mapping where vegetable farms are can be a little bit more challenging than it might be in the orcharding fruit tree world. So I guess my question is, does that kind of traceability and having lots of people using an app like Onside where you can see the movement around the place, does that kind of almost circumvent that need to map an industry? Because for me or for, from an industry point of view, I guess for us to be able to, if there's an exotic incursion, to be able to respond quickly, it's really makes it so much easier to know where farms are and, so that way you can contact those business owners and so on and, get that, response happening more quickly. So I guess knowing where things have moved, like you showed on your map, has beneficial to that. So yeah, I guess my question's around whether that sort of that traceability you can replaces the need to map?

So from my point, if I look to that from a need to map, from a growing point of view, I think what it does, it speeds up the process. So if there is an exotic incursion, rather than having to go through long-winded paper trail, trying to find that, trying to interrogate where things have been. If it's all accessible, then I think that speeds up and that's gotta be good for the industry. Anything that can speed up and rebuild consumer confidence has to be good. Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be my answer to that one, if that answers your question. Yeah. I guess it, if there's a number of mapping projects that different industries are doing or have done, and you can see where, I don't know, the avocado orchard are across Australia and so on, so I guess, and with vegetables, it, one, it's vegetables is massive. It's many different crops. But also, in some areas of Australia, they tend to switch between using land for vegetable to cattle or something else. So I guess this kind of traceability and knowing it, yeah, I guess my questions around that might be.. Some of that's a little bit, with Fresh Care and with the, and the audits, processor driven audits, it's, there's not a lot of jumping into land before it's prepared properly, so you have to have 12 months before you go minimum, before you go in after cattle, for obvious reasons. I don't think there's maybe the in and out approach that they used to be. It's more of a planned approach. And also a lot of these crops now are high value, high cost and require high levels of management. So the majority, a good percentage of baby leaf crops are grown with fixed irrigation. Fewer grown with linear and center pivots, but that also kinds of limits where you can go and where people want to go. But the mapping has to help, as I say, it has to help with speed of traceability. Ruling people in and ruling people out is the important bit. Yep.

Great. So we've got a couple of questions that have come through, and these ones are good sort of tech technical ones. So we've got one about how does on Onside work? So look, really it's how does a phone application work if there's no reception? Look, farming can be out, away from reception. You guys would probably be constantly pulling your hair out about certain issues with connectivity. But the way mobile apps are built is they can actually store information in the app, and then once you get into reception, it recognizes that and pings that information off, up to, the cloud. When it comes to on Onside, we've put a lot of work into storing all the key information that you need when someone's doing something when they're not connected. So timestamping incidents or timestamping movement and then that pings off to the cloud once you come back into reception. So it actually works really well. Also the app stores like map data and all that other stuff in there. So you don't actually have to have reception to use the app really well. And then the next one's to do with like data security and sharing data with other organizations. So that one comes into there's different sort of layers or tiers of data. You can have the base level of people's names, dates, numbers, all that sort of stuff that's protected by encryption. I wouldn't want to get into too much technical detail because I'm not the right person to be speaking deeply about that, but that's the storage and encryption side of things. But then when it comes to, say the movement or the check-ins at properties and then seeing if someone has checked into another property for the movement of a pest, that kind of thing, we have it anonymized when it comes to looking at the general movement of people. So we don't think of them as an individual. We think of them just as a person. They're a number. We have no idea who they are, but we know that there was movement from one spot to another. Now, legislation and the powers that be in the government actually have, laws in place around when you're able to actually find out who that person is. And they do that already with paper-based systems. So if you are recording movement within, within a log, they can actually, government has a regime where they can legally ask for that person's information so they can give 'em a call and find out and investigate that particular incursion. We just follow the preexisting legislation around when you actually share someone's information, for investigation into biosecurity issues. I hope that answers your question, Abby. It's a tough one when it comes to data security. Yeah. Okay. Now, in terms of seeing people, so Onside for recording, checking in and checking out of properties. So we don't show a farm manager where everyone on the farm is and you don't see them moving around like you're checking into Uber and you see the car driving around. It's not like that. We record that someone's come to the property, and then that individual on their phone can see where they are on the map because it's really useful to be able to see where you are, if you're heading to a certain spot on the property to do work. You need to know how far away you are so they can see that, but no one else can see their location. So it's not a tracking app in that regard. It really is the tracking of checking in to properties that, that is important for us. Yep.

Mike, you might be able to answer this as well. What kind of reports and data do you bring out of what you've collected? Is it a regular thing that you go, you are going back to look at, to help the business stay on top of things? Or is it more something that you use as a security, like as a, something that you can call upon if there is a need or does or do you use it as some kind of ongoing business, I guess reporting tool.

We're open, Andy, to use it as an ongoing business reporting tool as well. I said we're trying to link it into sustainability carbon footprint piece, we are trying to do that. And as I say that, I think that helps with the early adoption and the fact, I know on Onside guys have been going for a while in, in New Zealand and that yeah, but reasonably new over here so we can maybe help develop that, which may assist the industry because I think that kind data capture point is pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Sorry, I just saw another question pop up at the same time ,which is a great one, does everyone that comes onto the farm have to download the app, which is another question I was going to ask Mike about, do you mandate that everybody needs the app who comes onto your farm? Don't mandate it? We don't mandate it, but we obviously put out a, which in itself was a cleansing process, sending, a request to everybody who we use, could use, have used, will use. Yeah, we, I know it took colleague Abby about two days to send out and you're amazed how many people you accumulate. But we suggest to them they can do it on site or we suggest 'em if they want to download the app for ease if they come in multiple times, to do that. So we do both. Yeah.

Yeah. So I guess the answer to that question is that, yeah, if you want to, you need to download the app to use it obviously, but then as a business it's a value add if you do ask people to use it, yeah, that's right. That's right. So yeah, you don't have to have the app. So you can use a web link to, to log your details that you're coming to the farm. Or you can set up like a, an iPad in the head office if you want people to move through and fill their info out there. So yeah, you don't have to mandate that's how everyone does it. But I guess, like you said, Andy, there's a lot of really useful stuff in the app. We actually find with contractors, in regions that they want to go to properties, they like to go to properties that have an app-based check-in. Because it gives them the map, it gives them all of the OH&S stuff. It gives them all of that information and they can easily get in touch with farm managers from all the contact details that are in there as well. Yeah, we hear that contractors quite enjoy coming to properties that have the app because it makes it so much easier for them to just get started on what they need to do.

Cool. So Rose, probably a, I'm not sure if this is a tricky one or not, but what kind of stuff, what kind of information from industry perspective helps the industry understand when there is a biosecurity event? What's the base level info that you like to be able to get from a grower?

Initially it's just, although the location of their properties, that's why my question about the mapping, if we know where farms are and who to contact at those farms, that's, really helpful because then, you know who to contact.

And then I guess that it's really, it's not AUSVEG that leads a response, it's the government department within the state where the incursion happens. So we would assist. We're in a, hopefully in a position to assist the government agencies to, to connect with growers and feedback information that, that they don't have. So it's really talking to the farm business owners and working out where the properties are so that any surveillance that needs to be conducted can be conducted. And, early detection means a more rapid response I guess as Mike was saying. If you can find out where a pest is more quickly, then the response is more likely to be successful I guess. One thing, one thing I'd just add to Rose's piece there as well is, the health authorities are becoming more technical in that, in how they do stuff. And they do this, they have this tracking, this data-driven system. And I think growers would be amazed at how much detail they can pull out and how far they can go and actually look into things. And I think therefore, the industry itself has to try and keep pace with that as growers. We have to be able to match information, how people draw information, how they look at it. So I think that's something that the industry really needs to be aware of. It's quite a detailed process, if you get the wrong side of it.

Yeah. And by having that information and being able to be upfront with it, you're ring fencing the problems and minimizing impacts. So it's, starts to, yeah, really benefit everybody. And I liked what you said, Michael. Oh, sorry. Go Rose. Yep. I think what's quite interesting too is Mike also comes into this from a sustainability and also there's a lot of food safety coming up in Mike's comments as well, and I think there's quite a lot of overlap that makes it a little easier, it's not necessarily that there's biosecurity and there's food safety. Some of it, there's an overlap and it makes it a little easier to comprehend and manage as well. Some of these technologies and this kind of management of people and inputs and things through the, these kind of apps can help not just biosecurity, but other parts of the farm business as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was really excited to hear about the idea, Mike was saying about carbon footprints and how that can tie into it all, and that understanding of, of the big data machine that can run and help you really analyse the business and see where efficiencies can be made is really exciting. I'm very geeky and I love it, so it's. You should have a look at, sorry, digress. You should look at Siemens SiGREEN Technology. That's, yep, that's that drawing all that's the sort of stuff that's going to draw all this together. Yeah. Fantastic. I have to take them on the shoulder in the future.

Sorry, Sam. No, I was just going to say one thing that's interesting on that is you mentioned the sort of big amount of data, and that can be a blessing and a curse. So for example, the amount of sort of compliance that's required and, speaking with farmers here in about the new compliance and so the added things that are built up, it is quite data heavy and the admin of collecting that, it can be huge in some instances. And so one of the things that technology can help with is and stuff, especially when it's on a smartphone, which sort of, becomes part of your day to day, is collecting all that information that's required just as you go about doing your business. Just as you go about doing what you need to do on the property, being able to passively collect that info to then be able to pull reports and submit for audits as you need. That's a really interesting piece within modern farming to think about because the admin that's required is huge and not every organization can, not every farm can have it's an employee dedicated purely to admin. And I think that's one thing to recognize as well, is you've got different, I guess different size organizations and where you can actually invest time into that admin part of it.

And so with the way that Onside, can Onside take the data that's not just the app data, but like over a monthly period and present that back to the grower as, in form that is easily digestible for them? So they're not yeah. That's right. That's right. So there's a number of different ways of collecting that data or that info and you can then periodically pull it out. So you can report on all kinds of things on a yearly or monthly basis. And yeah, you can do what you want with it, depending on how you need to present it, for compliance purposes. And that fits within OH&S as well. Because as not only is there the food quality, biosecurity and all that sort of stuff but then you've got OH&S, which is another admin heavy part of an operation and that can all be reported on as well. Yeah. Excellent. You don't need a, you don't need to bring a data scientist onto staff. No. Nah. If you can click a button and download stuff, you'll be all right. Yep. Yeah. And I think that has become, I think the biggest, the hardest curve of this technology adoption has been this new layer of visual presentation of the data that's being collected, because lots of these sensors are old. People have been collecting the data for a long time, but not necessarily being able to understand it. So interfaces like you were showing us earlier, and we're all getting used to checking in over the last few years and there's like lots of things that we can adopt from those principles that can be implemented in business that smooth out things. But I would've hate to have been the person that had got lumped with that big stack of paper that had to go through and traced back through something to find where the issue was at any given time. Yeah. It's, I can see all these things of benefits in that respect. But just touching on the workers side of things do, is it a tool that can be used for much of that kind of worker flow throughout like the harvest season when you've got a lot more people on farm or, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, good question. The, I guess the way you use an app like Onside, it doesn't discern between whether it's an employee or a contractor or a seasonal worker. It's someone who's coming onto the property to do a job, and so you can, if they've got the app, they can, you can then divvy out tasks and jobs and you can organize the work that they're to do. Communicate that directly to them, and then they can go and do it, record it, and then you've got an auditable trail of what was done. So that's very useful in a lot of the communication with external workers and even for repetitive tasks where you can template out those instructions. But it fits that space between say the collection of say detailed like flow rates of spray and all that sort of stuff. That's, those systems are built beautifully for those reasons and they collect all that information wonderfully and that's good there, but there's that disconnect between getting someone to actually communicate what they've done, what needs to be done, where it is, all that sort of stuff. And I think Mike touched on it, it's that, that bringing that connection between say head office and the worker in the field, and being able to put that in their pocket on a phone and operationalize that information is, is where it comes into play.

Excellent. So you can really do that, connect out, like contact people as they are on your property and alert them to situations. Yeah, exactly right? Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yep. Yeah. Think that's where one of the great things from the biosecurity perspective is too, if someone's coming onto a farm, firstly, you know that who's coming on, and then you could include a checklist, have you cleaned your boots? Have you, yeah. Have you done whatever? Just making sure that people have checked that they've done all that before they're almost allowed on site. So it just provides an element of reassurance that the practices that the farm has in place have been followed. Yeah. And around harvest time, lots of cars that are just off the side of, it's not like everyone's entering through a single gate. There is that kind of like mass entrance to the, to a property. So I can see how that say will works really well.

The thing I say on that as well, just in support of the guys on Onside, that is sometimes you buy these systems and they'll tell you'll do it and you got to figure out your own way of doing it, and invariably what happens then is you either can't, or you get frustrated and you just don't bother, so you don't end up using the system. But the support that we've had from the team has been phenomenal. Connor's been particularly good, because he obviously looks after ourselves, and very helpful in setting up the templates, templates that can be re repeated, which is good because that's a saving, time saving piece as well, and helping us to explore how best to use it. So rather than just a purchase and go, it's that, that follow up work, which is, will be important for the industry because farming's not a natural, not always a natural suit to be able to work through this kind of stuff. So I think that's a really worth calling out.

Yeah. Cool. That's awesome. That's great. I think that adoption curve is something that, that, that scares a lot of growers. So to know that the technology, there's someone behind them to support that, is really, yeah, key to it. All right. It's vital. I couldn't even get a microphone to work, so that's help I need, so Connor was there helping you try and get it to work before?

No, that's great to hear. Thank you for that and Connor does a good job. Does a great job. Yeah, we're getting close to time. I've put my contact details in the chat. If anyone wants to ask any questions after this session, I'm happy to talk on Farm Tech till the cows come home. Reach out and we can have a chat about all that sort of stuff. But does anyone have any final questions, before we wrap up?

Scott Botten from DEECA here as well, mate. I was at the VIC event and I was just wondering if you want to quickly chat. There was a lot of people on site there, so whether there's concerns about how large a volume of people that can handle at any one time. Yeah, no, that was a, that's a good observation. Yeah, Vic Vid look. To be honest, when we were setting up for it, we had a chat to our tech team because an, in like a single location, farms could be big places, but they don't normally have hundreds of people checking in at once. And so we did have to do some testing around the volume. But it handled it fine. It was all good. There was no technical issues for that size of operation, which was all good. That was 150-200 people at one time?

Yeah. Because if we, yeah, just thinking for some of the larger orchards during harvest, they may have a hundred, 150 people in one area at one time. There's a check-in process. Yep. Whether that will cause issues. Yeah. Nah, no, but that's a, yeah, good observation. Nah. So no technical issues on that front. And to be honest, probably the person who's operating the front office would love for everyone just to check in themselves as they arrive, as opposed to lining up and signing a form. Good question. There's probably a lot of technical questions, but, yeah. No, I'm happy to talk about all those things.

Cool. I just want to say thank you to you all for coming along and chatting today. I think it was really great conversation. We are going to continue to do these in the future, so there will be another one on the 31st of August at this point. I just stuck in the chat a link to the evaluation form, which is, would be fantastic if you guys could fill that out for me. But anyway, thank you so much for coming and it's been great insights. I really like this idea of having a chat about what goes on and how people use it. It's fantastic and thank you Mike, for being able to join. It was really good to hear from a grower, how you guys are implementing it. And I've got a hundred more questions for you as well. I really want to know more about the carbons footprint element of things. So Yeah, you won't escape that. And Rose, thank you so much from the industry perspective because yeah, it's, I think it's at that scale that we need to start, that we need to adopt these technologies. So yeah, it's fantastic. So thank you all very much.

Transcript

First of all, I just wanted to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we are all meeting from today. I'd also like to pay my respects to elders past and present. This webinar is part of a series of webinars called Future Proofing Horticulture in a Changing Climate. And our intention is to run a webinar on the last Thursday of every month, featuring a timely piece of technology relevant to the horticulture industry. Today we're going to be looking at crop health and with a focus on early detection of crop stresses using remote sensing. So in doing this, we have Luke Weekley from Falcon UAV, who's going to talk through their approach to the work and Luke uses the technology and then goes right through the process through to helping him to improve soils from the data from the UAVs and along with him and to speak about the experience that he's had, in using this process is Lawrence Tedesco, who's the general manager of Elgee Park Winery. And then once we've been through these presentations, we'll have an opportunity for everybody to ask questions and have a bit of a Q& A session around what's being presented. I think at that, I'll hand it over to you, Luke.

All right. Cool. Thank you everyone. And great. Thank you so much, Andy. And I really appreciate everyone's time today. Obviously with Falcon UAV we specialize in land care using aerial imaging or otherwise known as drone technology to really isolate how to maximize and encourage the crop growing cycle through early detection of stress, ensure optimal environments for soil and ensure that throughout that it throughout the growing season that we're, we're able to be testing and monitoring rows and vines or fruit orchards, pastures, in anything really in agriculture more effectively. Technology has obviously come a long way with the utilizing different types of sensors now. We utilize multi spectral cameras, which leverages near infrared and different rays, different bands, which then just picks up a wider visual spectrum of what we can physically see to the naked eye, which we'll go through in this presentation.

I'd like to also thank Lawrence Tedesco, who's general manager of Elgee Park, that has been working with us now for some time. Lawrence joins us today. We'll have a look at his place and talk about how the improvement's been happening there. I do have some images that I was hoping to have in this presentation, but... If I can get them in whilst Lawrence is talking, we'll do that, but otherwise we'll get into it. I've just prepared this quick video, which kind of summarizes I guess, drone technology, how it works and then how you can utilize it in your business.

So those drones there, a couple of the drones we utilize obviously we're distributors here also in Australia for these fixed wings. They just facilitate much, I guess, longer flight times. And the benefit of these is you don't need to be, you don't need to have all the formal pilot licenses because they fall under that two kilo threshold.

But so in terms of regenerative methods and using drones in agriculture, it's for us, really, I'm from an agricultural background. We, we actually have stud cattle and stud sheep, and forever we had a method of just putting down inputs into our property just because we hadn't done that before and from traditional synthetic fertilizers through to now we're full regenerative now.

Obviously cost has always been one of those things you have to watch but leveraging drones you can now start to apply the product as the areas need it at the right time. Not having to have that blanket approach. So we've actually found a 30 percent decrease in our overall spend. And what it's allowed us to do is put down better quality product obviously, you know, specific custom blend prescription product, biological and nutrient wise that we're able to address the issues specifically that we're trying to address. And we're finding we're getting much more increased yields, better nutrition and ideally better growth that we're looking for.

So regenerative methods, certainly drones and agriculture allow you to make more informed decisions more effectively using precise analysis and increase ultimately your yields and reduce your cost. That's what we're all about working with our partners to, to really help them increase their overall production, reduce what their input.

So NDVI is one of the methods that we look at. So that stands for Normalized Different Vegetation Index. It's essentially, to keep it simple, a measure of where is it at vigour and growth. And obviously, healthy leaf. And that's measured through multispectral lenses that these cameras carry.

So the drones are really glorified flying devices that are carrying around really high equipment technology. They are freely available. You know, you can go and buy you know, Chinese drones quite easily, but you really want to make sure that they're able to do the job you're looking to do. There's more specialized units out there that can help you identify what you need to look for and then the software to help you do it. Otherwise as a service, it's something that you know, we take a lot of pride in. And ideally, you're looking for that, that vigour. So, at different points in the growing cycle, you're using different lenses, and the drones help you throughout each month see how you're tracking along.

In terms of explaining NDVI a little bit further as a vegetation index, this area here, where it's green, this is essentially what we call visible light. This is what we see blue, green and red. So when we see an aerial photograph or like a photograph in the background here, that's what's known as an RGB or an orthomosaic photo that we are, it looks like what we see, but the bands and the cameras start expanding outwards and you start getting into, you know, the further out you go, ultraviolet, infrared, microwave and the benefit of these additional bands allows you to detect crop stress, vine stress, leaf stress, and even now, thermal cameras is allowing you to detect surface temperature pressure as well, which we'll go through in the presentation. So, the impact on surface temperature, if you've got certain rows that is reading much higher surface temperature than other rows, that can affect how the ground there is leveraging, mutual that is leveraging mineral and nutrient because hot, hot soil will chew into your mineral nutrient four times faster than cooler soil. And we'll go through that today as well.

So really the best way to detect crop health. There's a myriad of different ways to get imaging. Satellite data is freely available in a lot of sources otherwise the benefit of drone data is that it's live. It's not it's not delayed. It’s not impacted by cloud cover. But more importantly, you get centimetre grade resolution, so you can really almost drill down to the leaf on the plant. Satellite data and we'll go through that a bit later as well, is quite difficult to sort of  see. Instead of 10 to 15 meter wide resolution, it's delayed and it's greatly impacted by cloud cover. So there is a, a strong benefit towards utilizing drone data or drones for this kind of exercise. On top of that, you can equip the drone with thermal cameras and be able to really plan out what you're trying to achieve.

Okay so the opportunity for farmers and agronomists really is estimating annual yield more accurately. It can help you make decisions. Drones can offer so many benefits to be able to help you, you know, gather more on demand insights quickly and more efficiently.

Being able to identify knowing where to treat and how much and really knowing where not to treat is, I guess, a huge opportunity. Also, you know, there are equipment that drones are now carrying, audible devices that we stock that can detect that can be used to detect and deter birds as well in certain periods. So they can be they can be deployed at intervals where birds can be then deterred from actually coming onto your, into your vines or your rows or your fruit in and that offsets netting and we have clients using those instead of netting saving a lot of money there. Most importantly, though, also is the reduction of chemicals and fertilizer and allowing you to put down what actually is going to be, give you the best return on your investment through the constant testing that the leveraging the power of the units and the cameras can allow you to do because now you know where to test, you can see where to treat, and you don't have to wait till the end of the season, just kind of find out the result.

For us you know, in our farming operations, being equipped to make precise decisions was something that we, was really motivating us to explore this more deeply and how we can better maximize our efficiencies and ultimately increase profit. So year on year, we're actually now focusing on more biology now. So helping the soil, unlocking the soils potential and then, and that's obviously allowing us now to reduce our reliance on, on nutrient every year as well, which has been really good for us. Now I'm just going to get into the next slide here. So this is what we're committed for. So, Andy just asked me to explain, you know, difference from really between satellite data versus drone data. And obviously there's a lot of you know, versions of it. But I thought we'd just go and clarify that. Here is an example of satellite imaging, and this is looking at sort of circa five to 600 acres this block here, and essentially this is a vegetation index, and you can kind of see you can get a guide on green being vigorous and red being areas of concern or orange, slight stress.

But this is otherwise what's known as Sentinel 2, V2 satellite data, and a lot of different, like, machine companies and so on, you can get this quite readily. MLA websites and other sort of things by cyber labs, but I mean, in terms of making informed decisions are to us that wasn't able to help us. So then we looked at obviously what we can do with drones and then all of a sudden the whole world changed. And as you can start to see, this is that same area now flown with our AgEagle UAV X with the multi spectral cameras, you have all the different lenses here, and this is your standard RGB lens photograph here. So you can kind of now start to see the level of detail. This flight was flown at 120 meters from the ground and you can start to immediately start to see areas of concern. Down here is the vegetation index reading and areas detecting crop stress and areas otherwise that are, that are strong in vigour and yield. This graph here to correlate is interesting because we leverage this to then go out to certain areas and test soils, do leaf tests, and then understand what's happening.

This same unit, this same flight was in flown with this thermal camera. But what's interesting, it was about a 26 or 27C degree day. And you can start to see in some areas of these fields, they were reading up to 40 degrees, and we had, we did this in conjunction with Landcare and Federation Uni, and the professors said that that's not uncommon. They likened it to a warm day on bitumen. It heats up very quickly. So if you imagine your vines, if you are in, in vineyard or fruit orchards, the impact of that can suddenly happen on your rows and what that can do. So here is an example of a vineyard. That's what's called an orthomosaic or aerial view. You can see the house and the working sheds all through here. This is the multi spectral lens across the place. You can see areas of concern. And this is the thermal view looking at surface temperatures. But when, what we addressed with this particular grower was when we started to look into some of the rows and we tested the soils, this time it wasn't a soil. The soil was actually okay, nutrient deficient a little bit. But what the big noticeable change was the heat of this particular row was significantly hotter than other rows. And so what that meant was that now due to lack of shading, they would need to apply more, a lot more organic compost and make sure these rows are really fuelled to ensure that they don't hit the end of the season and they find out later. And there's a lot of otherwise, it's very laborious exercise manually walking up and down all your rows every single day. So this client is utilizing the technology to help them maximize their impact each and every single month.

So in terms of drones and what's out there to leverage, there's fixed wings. So we use these in 95 percent of our flights just because we can scan with a multi spectral camera as you saw earlier. We can scan up to 100 acres in 18 minutes. Now, if you did that with a quadcopter, which we also leverage for smaller, tighter working kind of spaces, they're really handy. You know, that kind of distance would take over a day and you'd be regular battery changes and everything else. So, for a normal little multi rotor to do that coverage. The fixed wings are designed for bigger area, faster, variety from camera payloads, same as the multi rotors. The benefit of the multirotors, of course, is that they can carry more weight. So they can carry, you know, like things like sprays. So we use spray drones. So, so the benefit of this is that we're able to now leverage the multirotors are fantastic for carrying spray drones. So you may have seen spray drones working out there, applying chemical fertilizer or nutrient. So the spray drones are great because you avoid soil compaction you don't need. They can go where tractors can't go. The downside of course is that they, they're limited due to battery life. But we can comfortably cover around 20 hectares an hour. With our spray units, they sort of carry between 20 to 40 litres of solution at a time depending on how concentrated you need to do it. But they're also a fantastic solution. So multirotors have a purpose and do more tactical working. The fixed wings are just fantastic for fast scouting, I guess, of an analysis of crop and stress and or you know, how it's performing throughout the year to quickly identify areas throughout the thing. So here is just an example of a flight that I put together earlier. You should be able to see this. So this is the mission planning software that comes with the units. And we essentially map out, we map out the area. Don't worry about that warning, it's just because it's a simulation. So this is essentially showing how the software,

so the software maps out the area that we're going to be flying over. And then each and every month throughout that cycle, you just release the unit again. The unit flies by itself. You don't need to control it. It flies by itself in the air. It's GPS tracked and located, and it's mapping that whole area for you in the field.

Once that unit lands, you take down the images, and then essentially you run them through the software. We do that, obviously, for our clients, and they can manage it on their behalf. You can see all the different types of, depending on what you're looking to do. All different types of cameras available, depending on what you're looking for.

Are you looking for crop stress? Are you trying to identify areas of, you know, hotter areas, surface temperature? Are you trying to look for best place to plant your rows? Are you looking to do fence lines? Are you trying to count trees? There's so many different applications of how you can leverage drone technology and remote sensing in your operation. It's, it has to become commonplace into the future because it's critical to maximize your potentials. And obviously, you know, other applications of remote sensing include as you've seen. Mapping that we've obviously been through. Reconnaissance, which is more testing, monitoring and spot spraying with more of those, you know, those quadcopter drones down here. These are examples of the spray units. Be aware with these units that it's not just as simple as, you know, going and buying a unit. I think a lot of people may think, you know, yep, go and buy a unit and off you go. You do, there are things you need to then go and do. You need to do a short course if you want to get into this yourself. You need to you need to apply for chemical licensing because there are certain permits and applications and certain chemicals you can't spray from the air. Glyphosate being one of them where you need to look at special approvals because you can get drifting. So there are things to consider with these multi, multi-rotor units but otherwise there are, you know, contractors and businesses like ours everywhere that can assist you in this.

But the benefit of these applications, you don't get compaction from tractor or tires. You can do spot spraying. So the maps that these units create for you for crop stress or what you're trying to identify can be easily uploaded into these spray units. So they then go out and only spray areas that actually need it. So you start to reduce the amount of nutrient or biology product, whether you're using more effectively. And that's how we're utilizing the two together. So other usage. Obviously, we've talked about monitoring, managing soil, water and crop resources, crop acreage, impact on where to treat over time identify identification of planting and harvesting date.

So that's really important because there are key periods, you know, in in flowering, and budding. You know, pre harvest you really, you know, a lot of our clients leverage this technology heavily on because they want to ensure that as we, and Lawrence will probably touch this, touch on this in a second from Elgee, it's really important to then maximize, okay how effectively are we going throughout that growing season and quickly and easily identify where we need to address before we get to the end. You can quickly identify pest and disease infestation. We were working with an almond grower. We identified one of their rows was showing quite a lot of stress and when we looked into it, it was actually an Ambrosia beetle that had that had Branched out and it was due to over, there was too much nutrient in the ground and that was quickly spreading through all the rows. So they can help you identify issues before they become a problem.

Soil moisture estimation, as you can see up here, this is what Federation Uni were doing. So they saw that this area was obviously quite hot and they started testing the moisture levels in here. And then we formulated a plan for them to get that moving using an organic compost. Everything as you're seeing is GPS. So, you know, every single marker is, has got a geolocation built into it. So it can be tracked exactly to the point of where you can need to address. But in terms of you know, everything else we've talked about, particularly now we're going into El Nino, I think we're officially in El Nino. It's really even more important to keep on top of your operation through this kind of technology.

This is just an example here of the moisture testing and then the level, the readings difference between the hotter areas and obviously the cooler areas, again through drone technology and then linking that up with moisture probes is a great way to keep track. And now there are tools out there that can assist you throughout the growing season in real, if you've got moisture probes, in real time how these areas are going on your property that we can assist you with otherwise.

So interpretation of data, remote sensing using UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles or drones equipped with the right sensors can be useful for enhanced decision making and really yield estimation, yield prediction. They can help you solve problems. Everyone can probably read this and identify better utilization of land.

We use this technology to improve your soil condition environment and maximize your phenological cycles throughout the crop stages for optimal yield and reduced inputs. Remote sensing or RS is excellent opportunity to provide spatial overview or pasture properties or rather than just point data only. Data, it does require interpretation. So, you know, when you go, if you do decide to purchase and do this yourself. You know, there is some mapping software and so on. But once you know what you're doing it's honestly, it's just it's really easy and it just makes so much sense. This is an example of, you know, from the mapping and what we do traditionally, we used to just go and take we had our soil reps from the companies that used to help us with the mainstream companies that would just come out to our property. Agronomists would arrive, they would take soil from random parts of our property and just give us a map to soil test and tell us what was going on with our soils. But we knew that there were certain sections of our property that had different soils. We knew that when we were running our livestock or anything was in that particular area, it wasn't growing the same as certain other areas. And so that's where now with the drones, we actually, we can soil test exactly specific areas of our property. And now we can understand what those areas need separate to other areas. So it's really allowed us to start looking at, you know, well, what this area actually needs in terms of trace elements nutrient versus what it actually has.

But more importantly, we're also now looking at biology. The deficiency, particularly in a lot of biology, in a lot of the soils we manage client's behalf is is amazing. And without biology, you're really unlocking that opportunity that you have to maximize and reduce the amount of compost fertilizer you actually having to apply because the soil starts working for you. But the benefit is you can, you can turn this all around with a program. So, maximizing the phenological stage of the crop cycle becomes important. So, here's just the typical example of the sort of spreadsheets that we manage with clients where, you know, we obviously do, we pick the type of sensor we're going to look for. Are we looking for surface temperature? Are we looking for crop stress? What are we going to do? We fly the unit, we grab the mapping data, as you can sort of see over here, this client utilised all sensors. We then had our soil consult, we grabbed soils from up in these hotter areas and down in these sort of cooler areas to just detect the difference. And then we had a consult based on all the findings. So, you know, and then our agronomy team basically will then work with you to say, okay, well, in this section of the property, and this particular client had a compost mix that they were using that was actually fair. We tested the compost fertilizer as well. We found it was really high in, uh, iron. And what was interesting in the soil reports was up here in these hotter areas, the soil was already really high in iron. So just putting more of this compost fertilizer on up here wasn't helping. So that we in here they didn't need to put it on at all because it was already really high on although down here they could leverage it so automatically you're reducing their spend because you're helping make more informed decisions using the technology and then these are biological and nutrients that style of products that we then prescribed to them. Over the growing season we run leaf tests throughout we do another flyover to test how the performance is going and then this is just a bit of a, a program for them over a 12 to 14 week cycle of what they were doing for their crops. So then just looking at, I guess, what's called the five step precision plan, which we, we kind of try to manage. So really try to align your requirements and expectations to, you know, what are you actually trying to look for? And this is something that you know, to consider if you are going to go down the path of exploring remote sensing in your operation determine the mix of aerial and survey activities required, what type of cameras, therefore, are you going to need to work out what you're looking to do. Obviously, you know, work out the areas you want to execute the flight plan and obviously, evaluate the results.

Step two for us, deploy the units. So get the units up in the air. Get the flights done as frequently as you can to be able to monitor throughout. If you are using contractors, ensure they are licensed and they have their relevant insurances and the relevant qualifications. There are a lot of people at the moment, Civil Aviation Safety Authority, they're, they just can't keep up with the amount of work they have on the go. And there are a lot of people running around that don't have the appropriate certifications and you know, flying without the proper licensing. So just check all that out if you are working with anyone in this space for your own insurance purposes.

Basically, once the drones in down the ground, all images you can process through the softwares that are available for people. And obviously then, you know, as a prescription, we treat the area based on the soil testings that we do. And obviously then it's just a matter of rinse and repeat throughout the phenological cycles of that crop. So in a nutshell I'm going to pass across to Lawrence at Elgee. He can talk a little bit about what we've been doing there together and I guess Elgee and what their focus is at the moment and how, where we're going from here.

The first thing we did really with Luke was to bring the two drones to Elgee Park and pretty much just have a play around with them. The I was really interested in, I call it the bird, what's it called? Luke, the basically, because it's a it kind of looks a little bit like a wedgie, Wedgetail Eagle and you can you can set a flight plan for it and get it to fly periodically. We haven't purchased it or we haven't looked too much into it, but I really like it and would actually like to bring it back to Elgee and play around with it more during the, you know, during the fruiting season when the nets are on, when there's birds around and just see how it goes. So I'm hoping to talk to you Luke about that, so we can learn a little bit more about that. The other thing we did is we flew the, we flew the drone over and did the imaging, the thermal imaging, or the imaging there that you can see on the right-hand side. And you can see the that's essentially the Elgee Park vineyard there. There's, there's two blocks. There's a, the block on the far right, which we call the east block, and then the long kind of narrow block, which we call the north block. Along the north block, there's a big cypress hedge that runs down one side. It's been there since 1958 or 1960. So it's a pretty big hedge and you can see along there that there's some stressed, which is the dark kind of purple areas, there's some stressed areas at the top of the vineyard on the far left hand side from the, from root stress. You can see it all, obviously, you can see that hedge in the aerial photo and the, with the aerial photo, the nets are on the vineyard. So when Luke was out with us at Elgee Park, we were just about to harvest. So it would have been, I think we started harvesting early March. So I reckon it would have probably late Feb. You can see it looks quite, the grass looks quite dry, but you can see the black nets and the green nets on the East block. So, obviously the nets didn't make any difference at all.

The soil on the north block is quite good and you can see that there's a lot more stress on the right hand side on the east block and that's because when the vineyard was put in on that section, it was very undulating and essentially back in those days in the 70s when they put this vineyard in early 80s, late 70s, they just bulldozed the soil, they just bulldozed it level, which meant they took the, there, that's where Luke's got the arrow now. They took the topsoil off the top and essentially put it in the gullies. And so we're, we've ended up with a vineyard that's, it's, if you like, it's growing on, it's kind of growing on subs, on subsoil from the way that they shaped the ground to provide a level vineyard. They've, they just bulldozed it, ripped it, and bulldozed it. So you can see those stressful, those stressed areas that run up the gullies. There's about three, three gullies on that on there. We know those areas exist because you can actually see them in the vineyard. But the image obviously highlights that, as it did with the left hand side, with the stressed area from the cypress hedge. So it really kind of, drives home the areas that are struggling in the vineyard, and it's a, it's actually a big difference between those two blocks. And there's a big difference in those blocks with cropping, with disease pressure. Obviously vines, the vines are stressed, there's more disease pressure and the soil is quite, up the top. You can see the lines of stress on the top of that east block. It's actually the bottom, if you like, yeah, through there. See those lines? That's all rock, that's all rock through there. There's a lot of rock in that section. And as a result, those vines throughout there, you know, are quite stressed compared to the block on the other side, which wasn't bulldozed because it was a more level block. So there's a lot more top soil in that block.

So we then did some soil tests and yeah, which Luke's got there and he'll probably be able to talk a little bit more about the nutrient that we put on, but we, after post harvest basically we put on two applications of nutrient and we intend to put on some more liquid feed now through the growing season through October, November and we intend to do some PDL samples to, to monitor the uptake of the nutrient and see how the vines are going. And the, I would say the soil tests are probably, you know, reasonably straightforward, like any other property where you've got excess of some elements, lacking in other elements, and you just got to go through and work out a blend that you think would work well. The other thing that we wanted to do was in create, create encourage the grass growth or the sward throughout the vineyard so we could have a nice healthy cover crop. We, we've done a lot of kind of cover cropping in the past. We didn't do it this year. We just encouraged the rye grass that was there to grow and it's growing really well at the moment and we've done a couple of cuts and we're just trying to, cut that grass and let it sit under the vines and create its own natural kind of mulch.

But obviously if that's happening, we've got to keep track of what's going on with the soil and how much nutrient that's using actually while it's breaking down through the, through this period. So we're just going to try and track that as, as well.

One of the things we did also, as well as put the nutrient on we did a root barrier trench down the left hand side where the cypress hedge is. So we, we cut a trench through there to cut those roots. We went down about 1.2 metres along the side of the road. There's a road that you'll see on the photo, on the aerial photo, that, that runs down that vineyard. And so we've cut a route cause we, we could see from the, from the images, the stress that was creating from that hedge. So we cut a root barrier, which I actually did many, many years ago. And sometimes with these things, it's a lot of this stuff, we, you already know that's going on around your property. If you spend a lot of time around the farm, you see things and you think, Oh, I should do this and I should do that. But what this, does for us, it just kind of highlights the issues and you think, yeah, I really do need to address that, or I need to focus on that. And so it just sometimes these things actually just reinforce what you already know. And it's either you haven't done anything about it because you've been busy doing something else or you've looked at it a few times and considered doing something about it, but not. So, yeah, these photos here, these are recent photos taken last week. You can see the budburst is pretty healthy across the vineyard. And the, and you can see also the pretty good shot of the grass growth. So what we're hoping to do is just, yeah cut that and keep, keeps, we actually did some cutting yesterday and we're trying to slash that and throw it onto the under vine to act as a bit of a natural mulch rather than trying to bring too much product in, which we have done in the past, but it can be pretty expensive.

It's amazing, Lawrence. Thanks, mate. And you can sort of see too, really where, where you've made those, you've cut that hedge back was up through here, wasn't it? Or yes, yes, down up through there. Yeah. That was on that road. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was clawing away obviously at the vines performance there as well. So and that's, and you can sort of see obviously the bigger improvements in some of these applications that, and more focus as well. And as I said, the Chardonnay was on fire, which is good.

Yeah, yeah, it's all, it's all looking, it's all looking really good and so we'll just keep monitoring it and following through and looking forward to doing some PDL samples and just see what, what the vines are, what the vines are taking up and then do some more imaging again, probably around the same time next year and just continue to track it. We could be in for a dry season so we, you know, it might show up areas that are water stressed this time or we're not getting enough the irrigation's not up to the speed and, you know, it might help us stay on top of that as well.

Yeah, awesome. Fantastic. All right. Thanks, Lawrence. That's awesome. So, I mean, in summary drones we're coming in anyway can be obviously your eye in the sky in terms of satellite data, I think, you know, it shows centimetre grade accuracy, survey grade accuracy, saves a huge amount of time inspecting crops. That's a big one. And it's relatively straightforward. So, yeah, that's us. Please reach out if you have any more questions about the presentation or anything you'd like to know more, I'm happy to help. And thank you, Lawrence, again Tedesco from Elgee Park, really appreciate it. General manager down there. Sensational drop too, by the way. If you're ever in the area, they're near Merricks and yeah, be sure to drop in and say hi and watch, see Lawrence's amazing operation.

Fiona put a question in regards to the potential for yield estimation. How would you calculate that from the imagery, imaging?

Well, I guess, you know, I mean, that's that could depend on a million different things and I probably really need our soil agronomy team to sort of best answer that. But I think a lot of it just comes down to if you currently have an indication of what you're able to take off every year, it's probably now about understanding without guaranteeing anything. If you could be, if you could take if you could see more of your operation at all times throughout the growing cycle, it's about reducing that current loss that you're, you're factoring into your yield predictions every year. If you have a general idea of what you can get off each year, what you can't get off and what you know, your wastage and so on. It's about where you can offset that. That's I think the big one it's that way, how you can not only reduce your current waste or loss and because you're now able to take more control and better make better decisions over what you are doing without giving you a number specifically. I can tell you that in terms of inputs you know, between, we've personally, between 20 and 30 percent have reduced our inputs and now what is going down we know it's going down for a particular reason, like we're testing, leaf testing, fertilize we're testing compost mixes, we're testing everything and to ensure that it is going to actually provide assistance to what we're trying to do. And it's become actually fascinating that what's actually capable, what you can do with soil, particularly when you explore the biological route in reducing their reliance on nutrient because it's now you've improved that relationship between the plant and the soil itself, as you can sort of see with our Elgee so far this year as well. Everything that's going in there is going in for a purpose. And you may, and it could also depend on what type of soils you have. You may have different types of soils in your property that you know, are going to be you know, if you've got like, you know, red clay versus sandy loam, you know, you've got areas that you know perpetually wet. This sort of technology has allowed some of the clients we work with, they've built certain swale drains in areas to to get rid of perpetually bogged kind of areas. But now they can kind of work out where they need to. We've actually one client recently we discovered has a perpetually bogged kind of paddock, but we isolated it to a neighbouring dam, where the water was actually coming in from two blocks away across to their paddock and down. And then through that, they can then make their decisions. So I think it's probably difficult to put a number on it, Fiona, but certainly I'm happy to help and get our team in touch with you. If you want to reach out by all means, absolutely.

And Fiona's got another question. It would be really interesting to see how this could be applied to soil plot trails. Digiestate and inorganic ferts, for example. Oh, 100%. I mean, we've got dairy clients, for example, that, just need, you know, they'll say they just need their cattle, that they need, they just need to be you know, they need to be eating, blah, blah, blah, that they have, you know, they're using synthetic fertilizers, they can't seem to find the route with regenerative because regenerative takes time. Sure, if you know, if you're forced to use sort of synthetic styles of fertilizers at least this sort of technology allows you to work out where it needs to go and most importantly, where it doesn't need to go. I think land management practices and cultivation strategies you know, really start opening up here as well.

But in terms of the you know, the biological and nutrient, nutrient path, the easiest way we've found ourselves leveraging it is we can now apply a better product because we're not having to put as much down because what's going down is going down a specific area. So we can use better quality materials specific to what the ground or pastures or vines are looking for but in the right locations and then monitor it. As you, as Lawrence explained earlier. I hope, yeah, I hope that that we haven't otherwise done, I'm sure the research will be there but yeah, I, I agree Kelly, that would be, that would be really interesting to see how it could be applied.

There's another question here from Fiona. There's infrared imaging being done at ground level in California where bunch is identified, estimate weight to get yield, any potential for that here?

Yes you know, there's things like canopy height. You can sort of track canopy heights and you can sort of measure, you know, how they're going. It looks at the surface tip, the surface distance from the ground to the tree to the ground. So you can track kind of canopy heights. In terms of drones doing that. I know there's like fruit sizing and stuff in orchards and so on that do it. They, they take the They take the fruit through a scan machine once it's all, it's all been harvested and it kind of gives them fruit sizing. I don't believe at this stage there's potential for estimating weight of the grape. But I can tell you we have a wine vineyard that is using these images. And what they're doing, and this is it's actually fascinating. So they're uploading the images that you saw into their tractors, so when they're going down the rows and they're harvesting, they're, they've, they put themselves in the map because they, you can import this stuff into your machines if you've got the right technology. Or they're just, they're in certain rows. They can count the rows on the, on the maps and they're changing the bucket where there's a bigger vigour, like higher vigour and yield, they've worked out that they're getting a bigger grape a much bigger variety. And so they've changing the physical harvesting bucket on those rows where they've got a bit more vigour. And in the rows where they've got less vigour, they're changing the bucket to a different one and the grapes are going into a different batch that are then going into, are price differently. So that's how they're using the maps. So I don't think it'll estimate weight, but it will definitely help you identify, you know, how to collect and what to collect and where, or otherwise treat.

Scott asked, Jones are using large seed crops and some small seed crops to measure germination rates and complete stand counts, which can give you an indication for yields. Yes, that's true.

So you mentioned earlier that you're able to take on the imagery and then work with others. So if someone else has their own drone and they get up to speed on all the flying and they get the permits and the licenses and everything together, you can work with them from, you can work with them from the image processing through to the agronomic support levels as well. It's not necessarily just the flying of the drones where you're, where you guys are involved?

Yeah. So, you know, I mean, we're all about land management. And Falcon actually won an award recently, an APAC insider award for land management 2023. So the drones will won't tell you what the problem is. They'll just tell you where to look at and where to treat. So yeah, we, the bit, the bigger, I guess, more informative part of our practice is really working with clients and those images to then identify what is it we're trying to treat and look and then do all the relevant testing. So we, we have soil labs and you know, we get, we make all prescription blend fertilizers biological products all locally here in Australia. And our team of soil analysts then, you know, are constantly working with the growers to, to get what they need. So if people do have their units and they're flying their own drones and they need, they, they want to get some assistance on, on any of that, yeah, absolutely. We can certainly help, help you with that and, you know, know where to treat leaf test, all different types. It's just all about testing. Soil testing, test, test, test. You can never not test enough. I'm sure everyone on this call is testing all the time, but Yeah, at least now you know where to test and where to treat and what to do.

And, and the drone's become another tool in that kind of arsenal of things that you can use to test. So there's a, yeah, you can keep them, keep them going.

Oh, Scott's got one for Lawrence. So Lawrence, how has using the drones changed your decision making process within the vineyard?

I think it's more, as I was saying before, it's probably just Highlighting some of the things that we, we know, or we think we already know and just focusing our attention on them and just making it more of a reality. It's, it's kind of early days now, but and I think it's like anything, it's an integrated approach.

It won't be it won't be just, everything won't just be based on what the drones or what the infrared images show us, etc. But yeah, there's a few, few different areas there. It'll be good to, obviously, you know, once the, we've taken the image and we've got it on file, each season we'll be able to compare that image and see if there's any improvements in the stretched area. So that'll be really interesting. And then, of course, on top of that, as I was saying being able to potentially, you know, use it as a bird scaring device, probably in our, initially, anyway, in conjunction with the bird nets, it'd be nice if we didn't have to put nets on but at least initially, it'd be, it's going to be exciting just to play around with with that side of things as well. And potentially we'll use the drones in other areas of the property as well. We might look at a particular paddock that we want to do some work on or we might be able to compare paddocks and again we know which paddocks are probably doing poorly around the property. But it might just help us focus a bit more attention on the ones that need to be addressed.

Yeah, cool. So it's really going to fit in as part of the, part of the your working tools for managing the vineyard? Yeah, I think that's what we'll, I think that's what we'll do. We'll just, we'll, we'll just continue to use it and assess it, and like all these things, you don't there's no quick solution to anything. You've got to do it over a period of time and a number of seasons. Yeah. And, and do that in conjunction with obviously, you know, the targeted organic fertilizer, and we also want to, you know, try and get the, improve the biology of the soil in general as well.

Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. And was it, when you first got the first lot of images back, was it really interesting being able to see the property from that perspective and being able to get that overview of?

Yeah, it was and it was really, you know, interesting to be able to see those, as I say, those gullies like I was around when I was, I was a kid when that vineyard was put in and I kind of remember and know, you know, what that area was like, and it just really highlights those areas which particularly last season would've been really, really wet because the water the water was sitting in those gullies and, and potentially kind of sitting under the soil level too in the subsoil. And it really highlights those, the vines that we're struggling more because, because their roots are in that particular, particular zone. So it may mean that we've started doing some drainage work too, but it may mean in the future, depending on what happens, is that we, they would be the areas that we would focus on for drainage. There is drainage in that vineyard, but that vineyard's getting quite old now. So if we were looking at improving or redoing some drainage, you would be certainly using those images to help us pinpoint where we want to put those drains in.

Fantastic. It is and I think there has been lots of talk and what I really was intrigued about with Luke with how you were working and how you were taking the imagery was that, that full kind of approach to looking at the drones are one thing, there are, they're a tool, but this is what you can do once you've got the information and the data out of them, and there's tons of different ag tech solutions out there that will give you data, but it's understanding the data, which is sometimes becomes quite the hurdle in the process. So this is fascinating to hear, hear your ways of working through this process. Thank you very much.

I think it may not be an issue with drainage coming up, it might be an issue with which areas are more water stressed. And again, where we need to improve the irrigation. I think I've mentioned that before, but that's kind of in the forefront of my mind now. We've replanted some sections where we've pulled out old vines and replanted young vines. And you know, monitoring all those stressed areas or dry sections. Again, we probably just know from experience where those areas are, but I think it will be highlighting it and making us focus our attention on the things that we need to do and otherwise you tend to get sidetracked and do other things. And it's good to, it's good to stay focused on this stuff.

Thanks everyone for coming along. So there will be another webinar next month. Thank you again, Luke. Thanks again, Lawrence. Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Scott. Thank you very much to Lawrence. Appreciate it.

Transcript: Future-proofing horticulture in a changing climate - Introduction Aimee McCutcheon

I'd like to kick things off by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, of the Yorta Yorta people which we're meeting today and we pay our respects to the eldest past, present, and emerging and aboriginal elders of other communities who may be present each day.

So I want to be upfront and acknowledge that the horticultural industry is experiencing some cumulative effects at the moment and has been for the last number of years. We acknowledge and we understand that there has been some challenges and, but maybe the key challenges are listed up there as unseasonal conditions with the recent flood and hail and the wet and cool and humid season that we've had. There's also been freight issues with container shortages, packaging shortages, and logistics disrupted. We've also had issues with high input costs because most of the input costs rely on importation and export exchange rate and supply disruptions. We're aware I am aware that the toll of these challenge and what they bring to your business, but also to you personally, but with adversity, there becomes opportunities. So there's opportunities to innovate, adapt, and become more resilient. And that's why we're here today. I just wanted to acknowledge that from the start. Although we have, and let's face it, we've faced many challenges in the past, horticulture is very important to Victoria. Victoria Horticulture is diverse, so there's about 2,760 farm businesses operating in Victoria.

And that accounts for about 13% and for Australia, 20% of farm businesses. So there's quite a few horticulture farm businesses in Victoria. Unfortunately, it was, you can see it has declined from 2019, only 1%. We're still hanging in. There is approximately, there's approximately 121,000 hectares in Victoria used for horticulture production, and that's represented by the figure there. So it roughly equates to about 26% of the state. And that land use has a diverse range of climates, soil types, and the actual Victoria's compact size ensures that we have access to export and domestic markets and processing. So Victoria's. Victoria horticulture has state and nationwide importance. Victoria's Australia's second largest horticulture producer at 23%, and it's valued at 3.2 million billion, sorry, billion.

And that's a 3.8% increase from 2019-20. So the figures don't lie. Horticulture is important to Victoria. And we know that Victoria's Australia's largest producers of pears at 90%, peaches at 86%, nectarines at 77%. And then there's the olives, almonds, tomatoes, apples are among the other horticulture produced. But it's not just to Australia, it's also to the world. So in 2021- 22 Victorian exports commenced a rebound from the global supply chain disruptions and Victoria's Australia's largest horticultural exporter at 48%, and it's valued at 1.4 billion, and that's a 1% increase year on year. So we're holding our own on the export market.

China was the biggest value export market valued at 381 million, followed by Vietnam at 120 million, and India at 106 million and Victorian horticulture export markets are predominantly located in Asia, and India and Indonesia are growing, and they're the third and fourth largest markets for Victorian horticulture.

So hopefully this slide illustrates their strong export opportunities and a positive export future.

And bringing it down to a regional level, horticulture is important to the Goulburn Valley. I don't have to tell you that you're all sitting here in the Goulburn Valley. The gross value of agriculture production for the Goulburn region is actually more than that slide states. It's well and truly at about $2.12 billion in 2021, and it's one of Victoria's largest horticulture producing regions with almost 50% value of the Victorian fruits if you exclude grapes, because we can't forget about grapes in Mildura. So we'll just exclude those for today and say that about 50% of the value of Victoria's fruits is growing here in the Goulburn Valley. We're well connected to domestic and international markets with direct access to Melbourne and Sydney. And interesting enough, over 25% of truck registrations in Victoria come from the Goulburn valley, and we have access to modern irrigation systems and technology with the recent investments of over 2 million via the Goulburn Murray water. So the Goulburn Valley has a lot to offer to Victoria horticulture, to Australian horticulture, and to international markets.

So what is the Victorian government doing to progress the Victorian horticulture and to ensure that we are meeting challenges and opportunities? The Victorian government has this Victorian strategy. It's a strategy that outlines the way forward to help Victorian agriculture to meet and adapt to these challenges and opportunities.

There's clear focus areas, which you can see in the middle there. Recover, grow, modernize, protect, and promote. And over on the right-hand side are ways that we're supporting the horticultural industry to do that. So there's support for growers with information and tools to build resilience, to help recover, and protect their agriculture industries and businesses, ensuring Victorian horticulture is well placed to manage climate risk and continues to be productive and profitable, and promote Victoria's horticulture as high quality and high performance.

So drilling down, what's Agriculture Victoria's role in the agricultural strategy?

Agriculture Victoria works with and collaborates with industry and community stakeholders to support agriculture to become more globally competitive and innovative. Two areas of agriculture Victoria, going to be highlighted here today, one of which is agricultural services horticulture who design and deliver services to growers and service providers, and a couple of examples there of that is the farm business resilience program and flood recovery, which is about ensuring that businesses are resilient into changing climate conditions and into the future, and we also lead the horticultural industry and biosecurity, urban plant health, energy smart farming networks on behalf of Agriculture Victoria. So very targeted services to areas for development in the horticultural industry. and we also have a web presence. So if you've all got a smartphone, the web presence is www.him.com au. And on that, you'll find packaging of information and resources for the horticultural industry, particularly showcasing some of the research that we're going to present today.

Agriculture, Victoria Research - Horticulture, they're trying to they are achieving step change improvements in horticulture through innovation with leading science and capability. And a classic example of that is where we are today at the Tatura SmartFarm. So the Tatura SmartFarm is Australia's leading horticulture research facility, and it's linked to the Mildura Smart Farm. So the aim of the Tatura SmartFarm is to deliver precise and efficient fruit systems. So from the fruit orchard all the way through to the export market. And in that chain, it's to demonstrate applications of technology and research in particular, in future orchard design, precise and efficient orchard management and customize post-harvest management.

I'm not going to dwell on those on the details of those because you're going to hear the presentations today. I'd like to acknowledge Simone Warner, who's the head of Agriculture Victoria Research, if she's in the room. That's good. I know she's on site today.

So my final slide, I'd like to just leave you all with contemplating the future. This is the vision for Agriculture Victoria that's outlined in the agricultural strategy. It, it points to where we are heading and what we are working towards and clearly see that there is a bright future in horticulture. We know that we are creative, resilience and responsive and capitalizing on technology. We want to be the, in the engine of growth for the Victorian economy and the exports and production stats allude to that. We want to increase our exports and make sure that we've got diverse markets. And most importantly, that we're attracting the best and brightest to our farms and our regions. Let's take today as an opportunity to ponder where does your business fit in this, in this cycle, and where do you want to be and how are we going to get there?

I'll let you ponder those two questions as we go throughout the day.

Transcript: If only I knew what future weather would be like - Dale Grey Ag Vic

So I've been asked today to, I think the topic that Andy asked me to speak about " how can I know what the weather's going to do?" Well, what a cow of a question really. So I've sort of titled- it's predicting the weather and inverted commas past seven days. Many of you may or may not know that all the world's best computer models for predicting weather are only good at day seven. Once they get to day eight, flipping coins is more accurate, and that doesn't stop them from making predictions past day seven. They do, you'll get the predictions out to 14 days, but at day eight there's probably one model in the world that's okay at day eight, a European model. But the rest of them at day seven, they really start to deteriorate. And so the question of course is, well, that's fantastic, but I'd really like to have some idea about what was going on in the next fortnight and the next month. So that's what I'm gonna sort of speak about here. And I suppose once we get past the weather forecast of day seven, we start to get into the world of climate rather than weather because we aren't able to predict what storm will happen in 12 days time.

And we have to look at those overarching things such as sea surface temperatures around Australia, pressure patterns and what they're doing, and , you know, whether the southern annular mode in the southern ocean is dragging the frontal systems away or pushing them up. So these broad sort of puppeteer strings that are going on that are pushing the weather in a particular direction, but not necessarily driving the weather.

So, because we are Goulbun irrigators, I'm presuming, most of us, the closest data set that I could get off my little website that does this thing we're about to see is from Alexandra. And that's just the spring rainfall there since 1900, and we've got a whole suite of climate drivers here as well with the rainfall and things that you've all heard of, El Nino, La Nina, perhaps less known the Indian Ocean dipole, both it's positive and negative phases. And that's a very colorful graph, but it's not overly helpful except it shows you the variability is crazy. If we stack those from lowest to highest rainfall, things start to fall out a bit, because our El Ninos, which are orange and red here are nearly all in the lower half. And our La Ninas, which are blue and the dark blue, there's a fair swag of them up here. Our negative IODs, which are the wetter climate driver, are nearly all in the top half, and our positive IODs, which are periously close to that colour on this screen, which is a bit weird, are also down this end. But you can see that there is the odd, weird thing going on. So there's the odd dry climate driver here that's been quite wet, and there's the odd wetter one down here, which has been quite dry. So these climate drivers are not set in stone. They do not guarantee any particular outcome. It's all about probability. They increase the chance of it being wetter or they increase the chance of it being dryer.

This is perhaps a more interesting graph. So this is this is the Doherty's gauge on the Goulburn River and the upper Goulburn up towards, I always forget the name of the location up there, up towards the top of the great divide anyway, south of the, of Lake Eildon. And what we've done here is we've looked at the flow in that river system in the years that are El Nino. La Nina, positive IOD or negative IDO, and we've put that into where that fits historically, whether it's in the wettest third of records in blue, the average third of records in yellow, or the driest third of records in red. And so this clearly puts an absolute fudge on that stuff that La Nina equals flood and El Nino equals drought, because that is simply not true. They don't equal that at all, and they never have. They are a spread of outcomes and they distinctly increase the probability of a certain outcome, but they don't dismiss the fact that occasionally the exact opposite has happened. But because you are farmers, you are gambling every year in the wheel of life in how much rainfall falls out of the skye, and if your roulette wheel, you knew at the start of the season was stacked in a way like that, you go, well, I actually don't think I would like to play that wheel. I'd like to play one that's a third, third, third, thank you very much. That would be better. Or I wanna play one like this, which has got a much wetter outcome, more likely. So this is the positive IOD and the negative IOD. The interesting thing you can see with the flow in this stream, river, is that La Nina, out of all those three is perhaps the most fluffiest. It's got a, you know, almost a 50% chance of being wetter, but there's been a quarter of ones that have been drier. But if we look at the rainfall locally to here, it's not quite the same as that La Nina historically had a more well, has had a greater outcome in terms of La Nina being wetter.

This is the whole list of all those years, and so to tell you that, you know, rainfall in the highest third of records, big deal. Well, there's actually been only two years there that have been decile eight to the highest, 80 to 90% of records. But there's been seven years there that have been, when we have had El Nino, that have been decile one, the lowest 10% of records. Some of those were particularly painful for us. 82, 2006, 1994, and more recent memory there in the last of those six. Interestingly enough, 91 and 90 93, which would be in a lot of people's memories here as well, were El Ninos, but they were the two wetter ones and they sort of backed up quite close to each other. When I first started my career in agriculture, it wasn't long after these events and people basically told me, Dale, look, there's nothing in this El Nino - La Nina stuff. It's a Queensland thing. You know, just don't worry about that. And if you were looking at those two years, well, you'd probably be thinking, well, that was probably right. When you started looking at history, you can see, well, that's probably perhaps not the case.

This is just the Tatura data. It almost looks the same. You've still got those two decile eight years, although 1965 slips in now. There's a big, sort, a bigger chunk of average years but it's still about half the years have been below the average Decile 1, 2, 3. And the classic ones of, well, 2002, 2006, 1982 are the ones that sneak in down there. I thought I'd show this graph here. This is the effect on rainfall in terms of the red dots are at least a 30% decrease in the August to November rainfall spatially across Victoria, and the years that have been El Nino, and you can see that has a very strong north of the divide effect, because of that rainfall that would, might be, or should be streaming or the moisture that should be streaming from the northern parts in the years of El Nino and positive IOD for that matter, is decreased. That moisture source is decreased to the north of Australia. Things are not coming down as they ought to, and so you're getting this sort of almost a reverse rain shadow effect going on there.

I thought it would be interesting to have a look back at the past. So you may or may not know that I've been putting out a newsletter for the last 17 years, I think every month I've looked at over 12 climate models from around the world and assessed what they were predicting for rainfall for Victoria and temperature, and what the Pacific and the Indian oceans were up. And so, I had to go back to a paper copy last night and take a picture of it. This is the December, 2010 predictions from the models we were looking back then. And we actually had a La Nina already by then, the Indian Ocean was doing nothing, but what were the predictions for rainfall from the models back at that time? And we can remember that there was in that period, this dark blue area there is, it had highest on record rainfall, so it was a very wet time. It was pretty ordinary. We've just come out of the millennium drought and it was hard to believe that a lot of these models were lining up with not just looks like it could be wetter, but it looks like it's much likely to be wetter rainfall. So we've got the European model here, the POAMA, which was the bureau's model at the time, with a wetter forecast for Eastern half of Victoria, and a lot of these other places had wetter eastern halves as well. It was a pretty strong forecast that wasn't just likely to be a bit wetter. It was likely to be much wetter. And that was at the time hard to believe, but that's in fact what turned out to be the case.

2016 there was sniffing of La Nina at that time, but we had a negative Indian Ocean di pole, the rain giving system potentially from the Indian Ocean. And once again the models were not as emphatic, they were pretty much sitting more on this, well, what I've got here is a slightly wetter one. It just meant that out of all the model runs that the model did, there was a large percentage of them going for wetter, but not as large as those ones that were getting marked as wetter like they were in 2010. But as we know, this is just the August, October rainfall prediction. And it was certainly wet in many parts of Victoria in that time as well.

If we look at 2018 we had some predictions of an El Nino, but we also have, we had plenty of predictions of a positive IOD, the dryer section of the Indian Ocean. And we also had more, vast majority of the models here going for drier signals as well , and you might be thinking up there and going, Dale, I want more, give me more detail here. I don't, you know, this is slightly dry business. I can't run a farm like that. But the sad news is with much of this climate forecasting you need to think of The Castle and Dennis Denuto , it is the vibe you are looking for. You are not going to get specifics from models saying that in the next three months you're likely to get 58 millimeters on these dates and you should spray it these times to counteract that. That's not a lot in life. When we're looking past seven days, it's about what is more likely and what are the odds increasing of.

We also had 2019 was another positive IOD. That spring, autumn, winter season as well. Lots of predictions of drier once again, and in fact north of the divide. That was a very strong event with plenty of decile one rainfall. And most recently, what were the models staying last year in July of 2022, there was talk of a La Nina but we already had a negative IOD happening, and there's just models lighting up across the board here with wetter, but once again, like in 2010, we started to see for the first time a lot of models with these emphatic predictions of likely to be wetter, particularly north of the divide, but also over the whole of Victoria as a whole, and as we know, that's exactly what.

What I might do here is just have a look at, people may or may not know, the bureau meteorology changed their model, they didn't changed their model, but they changed the way the model presents its data in the last year and a bit to now, I think being the most complex model, able to develop the, show data in the whole of the world. It probably went from the most simplistic one, to now the most complex one. If you press on any of the map, so we usually get this chance of above and below median map here, the one that we have loved to hate over many years, and now if you click anywhere on this map on your phone or on a website or you can go into here and type in Tatura like I did, you can now not just get, what's the chance of getting above the average, you can get what the last 99 model runs of the last three days have binned out like in terms of deciles. This is the forecast for the next three months, and you've got what have you got? 36% of all those models are in decile one and two. A slightly higher amount of 20% is in decile five, and 6, but the number of models predicting wetter rainfall at decile seven to 10 is decreased to, you know, 6% really low amounts of the high rainfall models. So that's a drier trend that model. This model will not be wrong. I'll give you the tip. It will, the rainfall in the next three months is gonna fall somewhere between decile one and decile 10. But the odds at the moment are going for the drier end of things.

I will just finish off with what the forecasts are for the next three months from my big suite of models. We have a number of models sniffing an El Nino in the wind,. You would've heard a lot of talk about an El Nino at the moment. That's about all it is at the moment. Talk. And the models talking. We have almost zero evidence for an El Nino either starting to form or certainly not formed at all. We've started to get a lot more models now predicting a positive IOD as well. Despite those drier climate drivers, we have a significant suite of models who've got a drier trend for the next three months. So it's not just the bureau's model that's here that's got a drier outlook, but it's got plenty of mates as well. And so the forecast for the next three months is slightly drier. Can we, this tells us absolutely no information about the timing of the seasonal break, if we've got some people with a few sheep or cows in the room. It tells us absolutely nothing, because that will be an act of weather with a predictably about seven days about what will line up and will we get enough rainfall to get grass to start growing or will it not? But the overarching trend for the next three months is drier at a time of the year, I would add, when we have the poorest predictability, so autumn is always the most rubbish time for believing predictions and for getting ones that are meaningful.

So even though we've got lots of predictions for El Nino, positive IOD, there is so much random weather that will need to happen up in the tropical Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean to potentially get those to happen, and at this time of the year, it is, you really are up to these random weather events that happen up in the tropics that can kick these things off or not. And one would imagine if those climate drivers don't come through, well the dryer ones won't either, so that might not be a bad thing. There's plenty of people, I'm think, hoping for a drier season this year, aiming particularly in hort land.

Transcript: I need some tips on managing disease in my orchard. Nic Finger - Fruit Health

We will start off talking a little bit about last year, as I said, challenging year pear scab, 21 infection periods through last spring, and really hard back to back to back. There was a period in mid September where I think probably a few guys got caught out as well as in October, where it just kept going and then obviously with the flooding and standing water through the orchard, all of a sudden it was just hard to get out there to cover up and everything just started to spiral.

So early mid-September, there's that nice picture over the words, 'added difficulty with the flooding'. Most orchards either had standing water or some flood water in there, so it was quite difficult. Where things got really bad, we've had that build up over the last couple of seasons. So Mick Crisera made the comment, that there's generally been primary infections over the last couple of seasons. You got carryover inoculum, so we started off with a little problem. 21 was quite wet, 22 was even wetter. And so we've got this buildup, exponential buildup of inoculum and pressure for disease.

Black spot for apples, 13 primary infections. Probably less of an issue up here but it does still happen. Got some good large releases of ascospores early, which helps with pressure, but still there. And then Brown rot another fungi for other growers and that sort of thing. Wet and human conditions make things difficult with that humid condition, spray products might have been, might not have been drying properly before events. So there's also that. As I said, challenges: inoculum build up, more pressure, pretty straightforward. So you can see where we're going to go as far as fixing things. It's difficult to apply products, lots of rainfall. I can imagine there was quite a few guys with bogged tractors and then that flooding after that initial sort of establishment of disease and a few orchards saw the issue. And whilst we tend to think this year was a little bit late, there's 30th of August getting quite a bit of movement in pears. A lot of guys probably weren't quite onto it, I would say with slowdown of oil and stuff, that first spray probably snuck a little bit later, because people waited for product.

Pretty basic, but if you get an early establishment, the pressure goes up and everything starts to hammer on, and then you need to maintain cover through that summer period, we kept getting rain. So we had disease that just kept on rolling.

So this is out of Rimpro, so one of the models out there. This one's available by Marcel, as you can see after here, got a green tip at the 1st of September there, which is about, little bit later where that one was. But this period I've highlighted in pink -quite a lot of , . And we look at the rainfall in the dark blue down here. It's really difficult to actually cover that. So if you've got a 25 ml rainfall event, most protectants have actually washed and you've got to get back on and possibly back on again in that period. So it was pushing the proverbial uphill a little bit.

Flooding came in on that arrow. So if you already had an established population there, you're about three weeks later, you wouldn't start to see it. Pressure continued to rise and keep getting multiplied out. So a difficult year for spraying is probably the summary of the first half year. It was hard, but it is what it is. So as far as what you've got to be thinking next year, if you've got a problem, you might have a problem, even if you didn't have a problem, it's probably a good idea to be drawn and reduce your pressure. so keep it clean, reduce your inoculum levels. Urea in the post-harvest period is a good way to start to break down leaves. They don't, you don't want to go too early. Probably talking early, mid-May if you're looking for that real breakdown period. But if you're looking for more than nutritional benefit, you might be looking a bit earlier at a lower rate. Copper-chelate or other heavy metals, so zinc, iron will do it as well. Probably again, that early mid-may. Phytotoxicity is a risk, so be careful when you're playing with fire but need to drop leaves. That's an option to get things down faster. Once those leaves are on the ground, break them down faster as well. So urea onto the ground through the weed sprayer. Options like that. And then probably the big one, if you've got severe pressure, looking to sweep and mulch. So leaf sweepers, not super common. And then obviously targeting pruning earlier into the blocks that have of a problem so you can get 'em cleaned up faster, get everything broken down earlier to reduce that spore load for next year.

Mick gave me this picture, this for the guys who've mounted stuff, which is most, and then you've got quite a large mound. Something like this is an option just to get that sweep. So that's a sweeper, drive through, mulcher on the back. Sweep on mulch through, break up the leaves so they're smaller, they break down faster - spore load drops. That's the idea there.

Outside of breaking down inoculum, so reducing our pressures, that's one strategy, we also got to look at our sprayers. Getting 'em calibrated, serviced, everything working beautifully is awesome. Probably varying degrees of people doing this, but if you've got a problem, it's probably one of the first things to look. Then also making is, that it's right for the canopy you're trying to do. There's no point traveling at 12 kms an hour and only the spray on the bottom half of the tree and pulling that spray down. You're going to spray, you got to get coverage. That might mean if you can't get the spray to calibrate in that way or set up, getting the canopy optimized. If the trees are too tall or too dense, you're not getting adequate coverage. So either you need to adjust your coverage or adjust your canopy. It's a little bit of both.

If you do have vigour issues, addressing them. If you've got less susceptible to tissue for a lesser period, you've got less chance of infections. But first and foremost, you've got to get that good coverage to match your canopy. So if you are spraying really large open trees versus a very dense Tatura trellis, you've got to match that canopy with what you're actually trying to do. Got to cover tissue with the protectants.

And the other side of it, which definitely some people got caught out on, do you need more sprays? Or operators? So really, and people will probably laugh, you want to be trying to be able to cover in a day. I know it's very difficult on the scale that a lot of operators are up here, but that period through September, if you couldn't cover in a day, you would really going to struggle.

Getting onto it early, late dormant period. Good coverage. So copper, even Bordeaux is very sticky. It's a pain to mix but worth of consideration. Protectants are going to be your foundation through that spring period as the new tissue comes. So starting early, continue to cover, use the models. I know most of the retail guys, so Caldwells and Nutriens and Elders, most are tapping into models, so talk to them. That's probably the first place to start if you had an issue. And then choose appropriate sprays for the conditions. If it's going to rain very heavily, something like a magazine product tends to wash off a little bit faster, so something else may be more appropriate. So some are more sticky, so stick around for a bit longer, and I just threw this one in there. The most expensive spray is the one that doesn't work. I know a lot of spray programs cost a lot of money, but the cost on having 40% of your crop lost to scab or black spot or whatever else, is much more expensive than another 60 bucks a hectare.

As far as kickbacks and curatives, you know, protectants -number one, try to be covered as best you can. Things do come through. If you've missed it, you've got to get back on as soon as possible. Different chemistries have different periods to get it on with in, but making sure we're also rotating, so don't be just hitting the same chemical over and over, actually have a legal obligation to do that. But it's just poor form because if you keep going, we won't have that product in the future.

So in summary, reducing inoculum levels, sweep, mulch, post harvest sprays. Get the leaf broken down as fast as possible. Check your sprayer coverage. Calibrate your sprayer to your canopy. Make sure you got enough operators, and then get a plan in place -which products you're going to use, when you'll use them. Do you have enough spray pump capacity? Can you get it done in time? Tree vigour, canopy density? Do you need to make any modifications and then get in the orchard from mid August and start watching for susceptible tissue and getting that first spray on. If you've had an issue, it's very unlikely you'll completely nail it in the next spring. So you want to be almost right on top of it than being a bit lax.

Transcript: How can I make sure my soil is healthy after waterlogging - Darren Cribbes Connexus Global

So healthy soils is probably the most challenging part of starting this. What the hell is it? And I think the easiest part of a healthy soil from where I come from a consulting point of view is to figure out the constraints that's limiting production. We had Dale's talk earlier touched on. Talk, Ben gave a very good overview of some topics that I'll touch on around reducing habitat for pathogen. So that's the sort of thing that we'll be touching on today. So I'm going to give you the summary version right now and that's really to try and encourage you to do more soil testing.

I cover off a range of tests that are available for you trying to identify constraints and then be looking with your agronomists to look at how you're going to manage them. So all I've got is soil tests to sell. So it is not a hard pitch, it's intended to inform. Alright? Now contrary to pop your belief, you cannot buy soil health. Sorry, to the retail agronomists in the room. But you can have a go if you want. And I think this is the slide that I often use in my presentations. This is probably what we do in agriculture and we think we've got a good grip on things, but you know, the two presentations earlier indicate how challenging it is and what's around the corner that's going to bite us. So from a soil health point of view, what I'm really looking at is to look at, trying to look at management practices that are going to be looking long-term.

So in terms of recovery, we're going to touch on that. Recovery after flooding, I'm going to touch on a couple of little things, but it's really developing a management program that's going to be looking at long term health and sustainability of your orchard.

There's a couple of fuzzy words in there that I won't go into definitions of but that's really what we're after.

Okay. In terms of a definition of soil health, I often use that one from Doran, from 2012. And there's a range of indicator tests in there or indicator values that you could be looking at to, to assist in, in making decisions around management. Bulk density and texture, when we look at the physical components of soil. Probably the most limiting two factors that we've got, which are big issues in the Goulburn Valley in respective soil health is compaction and pH, that we're actually not really managing them too well. And I know, you know, at Nic's presentation there, 21 pair infections that probably should have had 42 runs across a paddock with a tractor, it's not going to help under wet conditions. So, We'll get into a little bit more of the presentation shortly about some ideas I have. Very simple.

When I refer to soil health, these are the things we're all familiar with, the biology, physics, and chemistry, and it's actually what we do as agronomists is really the functions that we're after. And again, I'll point the Nic's presentation was very good in respect of looking at function of digesting habitat to remove package and load, right. That's the sort of thing that we need to be looking at the function of nutrient availability, the function of disease reduction. So it's not all about getting a soil test and you know how much nitrogen and phosphorus I need to put out. It's really, can we look at the white space on that test and can it tell us some other things?

Alright, so during a flood we'll get a bit more topical with what we're meant to be here for today. The potential of erosion. A big risk of lots of topsoil, which is carrying nutrient off the property and or organic matter, which is probably the thing that I get most toey about. The deposition of SI and gravel from movement of water. Maybe not so much on this side of the Goulburn Valley, but certainly other side around, towards Benalla. There was a lot of movement of water. Leaching and movement of mobile nutrients. I know you won't be worried about that because you do your regular soil tests, right? Maybe. But there we can be looking at following up now, and probably now is a good time as we start to pack up for the season looking at soil testing and what we might need to top up in the tree currently to get it to look at next year. Then be starting to look at next springs applications of products as we get into that season . Water logging can also raise levels of a couple of elements. So again, your regular soil test, you'll be able to review what you did last year and check those numbers. Denitrification of nitrogen, probably been interesting because once we got drying this year, with the organic matter levels that we do have across this region in our soils, we did get good mineralization when the soil's dried up. So we do have some pretty good looking trees this year. I, in the back of my mind is just being aware of what that might do to trees over the winter period and in the next year. So I'm a little more concerned six months out than I am of what the trees look like this year. But with harvested fruit, we've got fruit coming off that we do tissue testing with on to check nutrient removal. So we'll start to see some issues probably show up compared to our early season fruitlet samples.

Okay slaking of soils, again, a big issue in this region and a lot of work that was done here, if you look back through the archives of DPI Tatura, what it was to me when I grew up in this area and certainly the work of Bruce Cockcroft and others, you know, along quite a period of time ago, is still very relevant to the soils in this region. I just want to just quickly have a look at a couple of soils and what happens, and this is certainly what has happened when we add water to these soils, are the slaking soils that occur in this region. So this is that compaction that's caused by silt and clay particles moving into that surface. And then we are actually getting turbation , it's tractor traffic and wheel rust that still exist out there in the paddocks. We'll touch on that in a couple of minutes also.

So important parts, and again, you're not going to get a measure on this, but should be looking at characteristics that you see and as indicators in your orchard around what's going on, where is nutrient gone, so we can do a test and have a look at that. I'm going to suggest to you that maybe sub soil testing is probably valid in many orchards in this region. We've got some of the sub soil testing that I've done recently is quite similar in some areas to the top soil, but there's a lot of areas that are actually quite constrained for nutrition and physical and biological characteristics. So I'm going to suggest that sub soil observation on occasion is to learn a little bit more about it and maybe make some better decisions. It is probably worthwhile.

Has biology been negatively affected? I would think so with, so certainly the positive guys were outweighed by the number of sick trees that we do see around with certainly phytophthora and pythium presently or certainly maybe a little earlier in the drying phase.

Structure, certainly we think's been affected in traffic and have the trees and crops. And I probably covered off that in a moment ago, some tissue testing and making observations about what's in the fruit when we're removing it and seeing if that corresponds with what was happening last year and whether we should be making some decisions around nutrient applications for that.

Okay. I won't go into the soil tests. I probably started off there. But I think I will make a point and you know, as an agronomist and , with other, many other agronomists in the room, I think, and as farmers that should be asking us the question, what's in the white space on that test? This is some numbers there. And if I've got 10 and I need 20, then I applied 10. But it's actually what's in the white space that's really going to help us make some decisions. So that's a challenge to all of us every day, I think.

I think everybody's seen this, the slide of the teaspoon and the, and in the media of, you know, there's more organisms, there's more organisms in a teaspoon of soil than there are people on the planet. Well, I think we've got to get past that point. And you know, we actually know now the functional groups of organisms that are in there. We actually know how many they are and the things that they do, and we also know a lot more about the interrelationship of organisms that are in the soil.

Alright, so I'm just going to give you an example. This is more commonly available nowadays. A commonly available test called Phospholipid Fatty Acid Analysis. This is a waiting of the numbers that come out of that test, as part of their function in the soil. So this is done by a microbiologist, not me. I just sell the test. But this is a really handy indicator of how your soil is performing. There is no, let me put two you, there is no correlation to the Goulburn Valley orchards here. So you need to do it for a couple of years to get a bit of an idea of how this is working for you.

I think the easiest thing with microbiology right now is it tells you what you have done. It may not tell us enough about what we should be doing in the future around our bugs in the soil, right? So probably indicates really around how our management practices exist. So I'll just give you a bit more detail on that test. So that's the analysis that comes out of that phospholipid fatty acid. PLFA, if you look it up on the web, even Google's on to it nowadays.

Just a note, as I told my daughter as she went through high school. There is a whole lot of information on the web. Some of it's even true

. So this is a phospholipid fatty acid analysis commonly used in research, but not correlated anything that we are doing here on a daily basis, but it can help us in decisions about how we're impacting our soil and our bugs. Okay. I won't go into that because we could be here. There's people doing PhDs on that. So there could be a three week seminar coming up.

I think repairing surface damage, really need to be getting onto that as soon as you possibly can, and I know you've got other things to do, but as a consultant, I can walk in, tell you to fix your ruts in your mid rows and then walk away. I'll see you in three weeks and we'll see if you've done it. Maybe your harvesting fruit and stuff trying to make money, but try to get that done. What we're going to add to that is really trying to get our favourite topic of the moment in agriculture is cover cropping. Crikey. If you're not doing that, you're not in the game, are you? So we're trying to get root systems back, develop in and help us break up that and maintain that aggregation in the soil. Right? So we looked at that earlier slide of slaking. I think cover crops and mid row crops and even back up under the trees, taking Bruce Cockcrofts work from years ago, trying to get root systems much more active and being managed as a part of the cropping system, not just sow them and hope, but you guys wouldn't do that anyway, would you? And a range of plant types that are producing, putting different root systems into that soil profile.

Okay, this one's a bit more hairy. This is researcher was done in 1996 in the United States that come up with this protein called Glomalin. The lab that, that these tests represent in Adelaide is using that glomalin as a surrogate for soil aggregation. So the more glomalin we can produce, which is a metabolite from particularly microrisal fungi, as it dies, leaves that glomalin protein and it represents the aggregation and stickiness of making aggregates hole together in soils. Probably got some probably got some criticism of its validity. So I'll just put that out there. In terms of the test, it's criticism in the research sphere about its validity and there are other tests like that, slaking test been around. Geez, if we all haven't been a session that's had a slake taste and a dispersion test, I'll go heave, but this water stable aggregates is probably an area that we're going to see a lot more of. Just as a handy in-paddock test that you can do and get an idea of how your soil's holding up. Just the same , again, in that white space on your soil test, you should be starting to be able to read soil tests adequately to give you an indication of what that physical nature of that soil should be like and how to make some amendments for it.

. I'll add a couple of things. Trying to get some nutrition out there. So there was research done in New South Wales a few years ago by a guy named Clive Kirkby PhD. For every ton of every 10 ton of subtle to produce one ton of organic matter, right, you need 80 kilograms of actual N , 20 kilos of actual P, 14 kilograms of actual sulphur. You can probably think of some products that you got now that you should be add, adding in with Nic's mix of urea, right? They're the nutrient ratio in humus, and that's what his research was on, validating that if we've got those going out on our stubble, we can get that broken down. Stubble or residue of your prunings, your leaf litter, those sorts of things. Now they've also got some nutrient in them, so you can adjust your nutrient levels to that. Alright, getting some liquid out. As Nick said, use your herbicide, sprayer, put it to use.

Tree health, I think I won't make any outlandish statements about potassium phosphite, but maybe it's something that you could talk to your agronomist about. Keep looking after your trees and try and put something into your tree. Cause I am a little concerned about tree health as we go forward through winter after probably some stress in the spring. So this is an indicator of how you might apply it. I don't know whether staffing numbers have improved around the region, but there may be other ways of application now, but yeah, looking at maybe something like potassium phosphate might be a handy inclusion to have a look at. It's not a written recommendation either, by the way. It's up to you.

If we are going to make those spray applications for nutrition, what we're looking to try and get value out of our organic matter. This is another test where you can look at organic materials in your orchard and what value they might provide around trying to get organic matter back into the soil. Again, I'm not trying to flog you a test, I'm trying to say there are a lot of tests out there that we don't see that might provide value to you. There's another one in this series called Nwise which is the full nitrogen biological nitrogen cycle in soil. It's another very good test.

Transcript: How can I prepare my orchard for extreme conditions. Dr Ian Goodwin - Ag Vic

So I think you, you're all pretty well aware of some of the extreme conditions and their effect on orchard production systems, and on this slide here I've tried to capture what those events actually are and the impact they have on horticultural production. And there's a whole range of things that obviously impact and it's a pretty difficult business to be in when you're faced with so many of these potential events and the impact they can have.

What I'll do for the rest of this talk is try to present some of the management options, adaptation in other words, to these sorts of events. And in other words, trying to reduce their impacts. I'll probably focus more on the last two there about some of the work we've been doing with respect to adaptation for extreme heat events and also the sort of a lot of historical work that we've done here at Tatura on irrigation management when we've got low, obviously low irrigation allocations. In that photo down there on the left is a reminder of that's the Hume Reservoir in 2007, and I think it was at about 7%. And if you remember, the initial allocation was zero, and that I think in 2008, it went up to a maximum 33%. Those severe drought conditions will occur again of course.

So first of all, just some, these are the first series of slides are pretty general. And I thought it was probably good to just remind us of the importance of mounding up rows, mounting up the soil in orchards to get surface drainage. The key is really that surface drainage during high rainfall events. Mounding's going to, not going to stop a flood event where you can't control flood water coming into an orchard, but it definitely is going to improve that surface drainage and prevent water logging from extremely high rainfall events, which did occur obviously last spring. And I've also got a couple of slides up there of the community drainage scheme that's in, in this region that was put in during the a series of obviously wet years in the nineties, and it does serve its purposes as was shown in spring last year. Sure, the outfall from the community drains go into the river and if the river floods then you know, that's a problem because it doesn't have anywhere to go, but it's it can handle some pretty high localized rainfall events to get rid of that water.

Yeah, and I've got up there spinner cuts too. So I remember in the nineties there was a lot of people using laser guided spinner cuts in orchards to get, down the middle of the row, to get rid of water that might be lying around. And I think that's when you have 10 years of drought, those sort of things go a little bit awol and out of favour, and people who are contractors go out of business. But anyway, I better keep moving.

With respect to fruit splitting, I showed on the previous site obviously some cherries, but yeah, things like Crips or Pink Lady cultivars they'll crack as well when we get very high rainfall events. There are really good advances now in rain covers with woven into a netting to give them better support and stopping and flapping around everywhere. And they also have this sort of ventilation system where heat that accumulates from the plastic of course, up the top , can be vented out and as seen on that slide, on the, on your right, the, they're retractable. They're retractable as well.

Hail events. So obviously netting's the key for preventing hail damage. The 22nd of last year, 22nd of December, we had a significant hail event here at Tatura that followed, went on a north northeast direction through Ardmona , then over into Bunbartha and so obviously, hail, obviously the netting is pretty much a secure way of preventing hail damage. But you can see from that slide there that the gable system is a lot more effective at shedding that netting as opposed to the flat type top netting systems that do accumulate hail and can get quite severely damaged from the hail accumulating and sagging and ripping the netting.

I've got on the slide there on the right, in our Agrivoltaics experiment here at Tatura. We did show a reduction in hail damage under the solar panels. It wasn't equivalent to what protection you get from netting, but it did reduce the damage.

Frost events. Frost fans have really probably the most common way of trying to reduce the effect of frost, whether they're portable fans or a, a stationary permanent fixed fan. The idea of them, them, of course, is to mix the warmer air that's below the inversion layer with colder air towards the soil surface. A lot of situations around the world can't use frost fans because it's not irradiation frost. You don't have that inversion layer. But most of our frost, or nearly all of them are irradiation frost so they do work quite effectively. The middle photo there is of micro jet system running, so the aim with any is to try to get the understory managed so that you can absorb enough, a lot of heat during the daytime, a lot of radiation from the sun to heat up the soil. And if that soil's moist, it'll absorb more heat, which can then get reradiated at night. And of course there's a, an image there of Overhead irrigation frost control from the United States. The issue with using overhead irrigation in this part of world is of course it uses water. Now water is a key input that's in short supply. The amount of water that you have to apply, you've got to keep ice you've got to, during a frost, you have to have ice forming on the wood or on the leaves because it's that ice that's forming that maintains the temperature of the tissue just below zero. So it's really critical that the overhead irrigation is kept running during a frost event because otherwise, if you turn it off, the temperature of the tissue will actually plummet. So ice forming from the irrigation is a good thing, but it needs to keep on going. And the last slide over there is a fogging machine. And the fogging is something that I don't know too many people using fogging machines, but the idea is to blanket the orchard with fog and do it in the evening to prevent the loss of heat over the night-time period. So it's not applied in the early hours of the morning, during the if the fog leaves, of course you'd have to reapply it, but the aim is to try to the loss of heat from the soil.

So labour, I put up there, is an issue with respect to heat events. So getting happy workers is probably a key component of any business nowadays. And people have, are a bit allergic to working outside during hot weather. The concept of using platform harvesters for workers to be more comfortable when that picking is means mechanism to overcome that issue. And of course, one day we'll probably have robotic harvesters, although we've still got a way to go, but there's a lot of work going on at the moment with robotic harvesting.

So chilling. So lack of chill because of warm because of warm winters and predictions are that, that's going to continue to be with climate change, is going to be a problem in this region. At the moment, really the only solutions are dormancy braking sprays, and of course, for those dormancy braking spray ,the emphasis is on making sure that they're applied at the right time, which is after the buds have actually accumulated enough chill to break. The, they're really impacting on the, on, on that the accumulation of heat for flowering, that's when the, these dormancy brakings are having an impact. And the idea, of course, is to, so that you get even flowering and you get synchronization with colonizers.

And with respect to sunburn, I'll talk a little bit more about evaporative cooling and netting in the next few slides, but I just showing here the other option for preventing sunburn is spray on protectants, and the white carbonate based, products have gone out of favour mainly because they'll, the residues that they leave on the fruit are difficult to remove. And obviously that's, a consumer is going to object to seeing any white powder on a piece of fruit in the supermarket for obvious reasons.

With respect to evaporative cooling, we did quite a lot of work a few years ago now, but it's still quite relevant where deliberately applying overhead irrigation and overhead watering system to, to cool the fruit, and what we did in those experiments was measure the fruit surface temperature. So this is a thermo-couple up here that's sticking in just under the skin of the fruit to, to measure that temperature of the fruit. And this graph here is showing some data from that fruit surface temperature. And on the figure you've got, there's two lines here. There's a dark brown line and an orange line. They're the two thresholds as to when you'll get sunburn damage. The lower one is sunburn browning, and this one here is sunburn necrosis, the blackening of the fruit. So they're the the fruit skin temperature, in other words, about 46 degrees and 52 degrees, when you'll get the fruit suffer from those sunburn browning and sunburn necrosis. So this blue line here is that the fruit surface temperature without any evaporative cooling, the black line is our air temperature, and the green line, the fruit surface temperature when we're using evaporative cooling. And so you'll note from this, it's, know it's a saw tooth here, and the reason for that is that it's actually being pulsed. So it's about 15 minutes on and 15 minutes off. Or actually, I think it was about 10 minutes on and 15 off, but it was along that sort of timeframe of pulsing the irrigation. You can see that the fruit surface temperatures well and truly, quite low when the irrigation's being applied, the overhead irrigation and obviously the, there's water on the surface of the fruit and it's and the mechanism of course is it's evaporation. The water's being evaporated from the skin and cooling the fruit. So you get this sore tooth, of when it's on, when you know it's obviously dropping and then you turn it off and it goes back up. But it's definitely maintaining the fruit surface temperature well below the, that which causes damage. And of course the reason why we're doing this pulsing was to try to minimize the amount of water that was being applied.

Some other work we've been doing with respect to netting the effects on, again, on fruit surface temperature. So this is our thermocouple sticking in a, a gala. And what we did was in measure fruit surface temperature in a, underneath a netted orchard and then outside the orchard, and then compared those measurements with air temperature. We know those thresholds of 46 degrees or thereabouts for some of them browning and 52 for necrosis. So we related air temperature to the measurements we were taking of fruit surface temperature, and we came up with these. These are air temperatures as to when we were getting sunburn browning or when you would get sunburn browning and when you'd get necrosis. In a non-netted orchard, on average 34 degree air temperature day, we start to see some sunburn browning, some sunburn, browning, and then necrosis was when we get air temperatures about 37.9. Whereas of course, with netting we had to get air temperatures up around this before you'd start getting to those thresholds for browning. And when we did this study, we never got any fruit surface temperatures under the netting that would lead to necrosis. What we did is then of course picked up on some climate change models. To try to look at for different apple grown districts around Australia. And this particular graph is for the number of days of browning risk days.

This is historically in an unnetted and a netted orchard, so you can see that there's, on average six days we're likely to get sunburn browning, on average is this long term average ,historical data. If you're in an netted orchard there be two days, right? And so this is projected based on those climate change models as to what might happen into future climates. So from 2030, 2030 is getting closer and closer, isn't it? Because we did this work back in 2015, so we're more than halfway there. 2050 and 2090 and of course you can see, the dramatic increase in the number of days of browning risks around here, and you'll still get that under netting in terms of browning, sunburn browning into the future.

So the other adaptation is through foliage cover. And you'll see the sundial orchard today, and one of the objectives of that was to see if we could reduce sunburn, and in combination with rootstock.

With respect to irrigation. So as I said, we did a lot of work historically and this is some of the results from both field observations as well as some modelling work. But basically, going from micro jet to drip, you'll get a 20 to 25% saving in irrigation. Classical RDI. This is for stone fruit where you're applying water deficits during this period of rapid shoot growth and slow fruit growth. Again, calculations and observation showed roughly a 20 to 25% water saving, and then post-harvest as well, we did quite a work of looking at the water saving from post-harvest water deficits. I won't go into the detail of those numbers now, and with respect to apples this is something that we wouldn't recommend. If you apply RDI on apples, you will get loss in fruit size and yield. It doesn't have that distinctive growth phases like peaches and even for that matter in pears, and so that's what this figure here is showing that if you start dropping your irrigation below crop water requirement, you'll start to get a reduction in here. Of course, if you go above it, it's just plateaued. But some interesting works been done and, we've never replicated this work, but it was a great study in Israel where they looked at the crop thinning and water deficits. And the bottom line is that, by thinning a crop pretty heavily, you can still get a target fruit size, not matching fruit size, but a target fruit size, where the fruit is still marketable with lower irrigation applications.

And I'll just end on this slide here, which is a new website. We haven't had anything to do with it, but it's been developed by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology and it's Climate Services for Agriculture and it's basically providing in this particular case, I've selected Tatura, and, it's climate in information for apple, and you can click on various projections into the future as well as historical and see what impact future climates, historical, as well as future climates might be having on things like sun damage and winter chill were too that I've picked up on. And this figure here is, this is actually historical data showing temperature data where, you know, days that are, temperature maximum's is exceeding 32 degrees Celsius, you can see this jump up over the last 20 that's more than 20 years, isn't it? It's 20 years from 30 years from there and 30 years previous to that.

But anyway, it's quite an interesting website to have a look at some of the projections for climate data.

Transcript: What does a future orchard look like. Dr Mark O'Connell -Ag Vic

"What do future orchards look like?" is being topic for today. So at Tatura SmartFarm, our research and innovation's focused around marketable yield, product value, production efficiency. To do that, we've been focusing on future orchard designs, orchard management practices, which Ian and others have talked about, and post harvest management practices. We do that through experimental orchards, research on commercial orchards and using facilities and ag tech. You'll get to see some of those this afternoon. And you'll see some of these today, invite you out after lunch to the smart farm, there's experimental orchards to answer research questions with co-investment with industry, et cetera. So there's work on pears and stone fruits, agrovoltaics, the sundial orchard, etcetera. We also have higher research degrees, and we've got a couple of those happening at the moment as well. One of those is looking at the sun dial orchard, looking at, as Ian alluded to, row direction and rootstock interactions and how that affects light productivity, quality, sunburn, all these things. And Maddie has commenced her studies on that with apples. Why is all this important? We've done 8 billion, we're heading to 9 billion humanoids on the earth. That means we've got to increase food production by another 50% of where we are now. That brings in issues around food security, water security, food waste. Growers have still got to make a buck. So the return on investment, they've got to be sustainable economically, financially, social licensed to operate. So at Tatura SmartFarm we are bringing in the agronomy, the physiology and the ag tech, as I said, around orchard systems and productivity in stone fruit, pome fruit and almonds.

Precision horticulture, agriculture, you might have heard about. It's some call it the technology for crops. Others call it crops for technology. It's also known as agriculture 4.0. I'd like to highlight too, later in the year where we're hosting the International Symposium on Precision Management of orchards and vineyards. But I'll give you another spiel on that later.

So according to CSIRO the major trends are we need to adapt for climate change. We need to be cleaner, leaner, and greener. We've got human health, we've got geopolitics. Can't do much about that one. Getting into digital autonomy and the human health and dimension stuff. So horticulture I’d argue slots into a lot of those. I just recently seen in, in in Germany, they're advertising specials on the supermarket shelf with greenhouse equivalents, that's CO2 equivalent. There's obviously, there's some accounting and traceability in things happening here in production agriculture. So I'd argue it's time to tackle future orchards. We've heard about rising energy costs, input costs - fertilizers, diesel, the risk of extreme weather. We've just had, we know about covid. Horticulture obviously does have an appetite for AgTech. There are things out there like dwarfing root stocks and things that can help develop and design new future orchards.

There's knowledge, proved knowledge around tree training and canopies, pruning systems. Obviously there's always continual structural adjustment at the regional level. Interestingly, there is an ag tech finder website that hundreds of, for Australia, services and products. So I don't know if many people have seen that through that info, so for your information. So there's a website designed for agriculture and how to find companies and systems and products.

So here at Tatura we've been using sensors, smart sensors to help us measure non-destructively in the orchard before harvest, fruit maturity, fruit sweetness, fruit firmness fruit skin colour, things that are important to this marketable yield.

We've been measuring fruit number on the tree, the Green Atlas photographer and Nic Finger's brought his machine up as well today. You'll see this afternoon. There'll be Ruben's technology tent as well in the sundial.

So we need to bring in things around traceability, climate adaptation. We've heard and we'll see, you'll see this afternoon, agrovoltaics and AgTech sensors and systems. You might have, might not have heard about APIs so there, there's work being done here, looking at the behind the scenes data, exchanging and getting things, talking to one another and behind the app, the smartphone apps and things. Digital twin orchards is another exciting area of work where you've basically got a LiDAR scan, a digital representation of your actual orchard. So we think there's huge potential there with spray efficiencies and improved management practices and knowing exactly how things are in the real world in a digital sense, and then using that to, for agriculture and improve management.

And what I'm going to try and focus on today is where we're heading with pedestrian orchards, this narrow row orchard systems, with the potential new project. And we're planning to do cherry, pear, apple, nectarine, and plum. So what's that about? It's all about a fruiting wall. If you can imagine a fruiting wall of foliage and fruit, and that's aiming to improve the light distribution down that profile of that canopy, and within that canopy. It's all about uniform through quality, high marketable yields. It's changing that ratio of tree height to tree spacing, but even canopy width. So it's a new way of managing those trees, those orchards. Obviously, there's a need, and we've heard about it for millions and others today, we need still have some crops that benefit from climate adaptation. Things like netting and rain covers for cherries for example. I've touched on some of this already. Ag tech, artificial intelligence, machine learning sensors for trees and fruit. We'll have some of those on display this afternoon. Autonomous vehicles, I've, again, I think there's some tractors there today to observe in. Yeah and any system that helps with a more uniform canopy could potentially managed with mechanization, whether that's pruning, slashing and spraying and robotic harvesting in future. The new experimental narrow row pedestrian orchard that we plan to plant here is obviously going to be a demonstration site for stakeholders and growers and students as well, and also as an AgTech demo for equipment sensing.

It brings in that dimension of if everything can be managed at from the ground. You've got, you're removing the need for ladders and platforms and helps with OH&S and worker safety. And then there's the orchard efficiency dimension as well.

Sweet. So there's a whole heap of reasons you'd want to do this fruiting wall. There's agronomic reasons, there's management reasons, and there's this mechanization. As they're listed here, the economic management reasons, the hand pruning and thinning, everything's ground based. The agronomic ones I've alluded to are the light distribution and the improved uniformity, and then the mechanization ones are listed there as well. The pruning, the thinning. More efficiency in terms applications, nutrients or growth regulators or et cetera, et cetera.

So this is what we are thinking. As I said, the five crops, air apple victory and cherry and plums. Narrow row, two meter rows, narrow canopies, 20 centimetre wide canopies, tree height, two meters. Obviously you're going to need dwarfing rootstocks. Cordon system adjusted to each crop. Obviously some crops, the cordon spacing can be closer or further apart. Vertical leaders. Netting where required, rain covers on the cherry and also a potentially a demo block, as you can see for apple.

So we're calling it the "two B, two B two B" orchard, two meters high, two meter spacing, two meter tree spacing. So tree density is no higher than any other high density orchard system we've got now, it's just a narrow row and two meters high. No, no ladders as we said. That's our thinking at the moment with cultivars and crops at the stage. The dwarf rootstock are important and you can get them, but what's the exciting bit we'd argue is trying to bring in the next generation and the ag tech and, and using that to demonstrate how we can manage and improve orchard efficiency and productivity. So there's examples of these little autonomous borrow vehicles that can buzz around and take produce off, off the trees to the back to base, whether that's the packing shed. You've got crop monitoring within the season, the cartographer and other sensor systems. You’ve got, potentially robotics, if you've got a nice fruiting wall there, a system that's amenable to mechanical and robotics.

We'll have this on display this afternoon at the Sundial Orchard. Here's where we have a platform harvester, but what we've done is just recently installed a smart sensing system on one of those picking arms. One of those yeah, arms where we are looking at sensing fruit as it's harvested, looking at the fruit maturity and the fruit quality.

As I said we got an event later in the year, which I'd like to highlight, and there's a website there and you can talk to me and others around that.

Transcript: Why should I track and capture orchard data Roei Yaakobi - TieUp Farming

Hi everyone. Good to see familiar faces. So I was asked to talk about why should I capture data on the farm. So if I would say you shouldn't then just walk off, but the truth is, is that we all already capturing data on the farm today. So I think the right question is how do we capture data on the farm and what are the benefits?

I'm from TieUp farming as was introduced before and we make farms smarter. I'd like to start with a quote that touches on one of the immediate benefits, again, to separate between future benefits to immediate benefits. One of the more challenging dimensions of the farm tech sector has always been the ability to link agronomic activity to farms financials. So the writer goes on and touches on the three main points when it comes to data capturing, which is digital standardization, interoperability, and data quality. Data quality being the most important thing when it comes to data capturing. Some of you might have heard, especially when it's about artificial intelligence and data science, garbage in, garbage out, basically. So if it's quality data, you're going to get quality outputs as well.

So basically today, farms data offers non-standardized and fragmented view of the operation. We all well, I'm sure a lot of you can relate to the fact that we see a lot of cool tech out there available today. The last speaker touched on a lot of them, but still we've got a lot of data that is being done manually, not being captured on a digital one and zeros if you like. And in any case, any sets of data that is being captured is mostly siloed, meaning it sits in its own data sets. So we just sit there and if it's the spray information, you just sit on the spray view. If it's the harvest information, it just sits on the harvest platform, and so on and so forth. So who we are. Farming: we are an E R P system to manage the farm enterprise resource. A more simpler word, farm management software. Streamline workflow, traceability, optimize sustainability of course, and increase profitability are the main value proposition. We integrate, so there's two main aspects of what we do. We integrate other solutions that are more specific on the farm, like irrigation solutions and stuff that were mentioned before. Green Atlas. We spoke in the past as well what Nic is doing. And then we have a proprietary software that is been utilized on the farm and that is mainly to capture that information that I mentioned before. That is more pen and paper and excess purchase. By the way, pen and paper and excess spreadsheets are very similar in the sense of data capturing.

So that enables us to provide a granular profile of the farm Financial with a click of a button, as the season progress. You don't need to wait to get all the data together to collect it from this contractor, from that worker, and so on. It's all there with a click of a button. That touches on the quote I provided before. That is an immediate benefit you can get today.

And we were asked to provide with kind of a case study. So Pollen Sans Farm, utilizing three modules. It's a modular system with what we provide, harvest data, chemical and fertilizer data, and all the agrotechnical jobs. And the benefit as mentioned is as the season goes by having all these financial easily accessible, ensuring they're profitable with today's tight margins. And I'm sure you all can relate to the tight margins of experience. So again, connecting the how I'm capturing the data, we are all capturing data to benefits. These benefits can, you can enjoy from them today. It's not something in the future.

I'm stopping here for a sec. I want to touch on another very important principle. And again, it's enough that I hope you take one thing today from this talk. I'll help you, one data entry point or capturing point if you like, on the farm. So think about capturing data with pen and paper, with various software solution or software that don't talk to each other, or putting it on excess spreadsheets. While having this type of data capturing, basically with that action, for example, scanning the bin, you have traceability because you're also doing the spray on it. So fertilizer, you know, who, what was sprayed on it, who picked it where, when, and so forth. So full traceability. You've got the payroll report, you can pay with it. You've got the real-time management. You can see in real time on the day what was harvest. You can take action immediately. Everything with that one scan, associating the pickers, submit. That's it. And you are already doing it. A lot of you, I guess. All of you, basically, but a lot of the time it's with bin ticket or just writing it down and then transferring it and so on and so forth.

Just to give more basic example of how to capture data, clocking in, clocking out, all the version.

This is a view on how the data has been captured digitally. It's focusing on the spray for a sec. So this is the mobile view, this is the web view. Again, the one data entry point, once you have it and you all, again, you all doing it because you have to, regulations and so on. So, other than the audits, which I should mention before again, the one data entry point, you also can start getting a bit more value with a click of button, you can see a nutrient breakdown. What was used on a specific block, what was used on a variety, you can put the filter on, and a date range and so on and so forth. Same with product type. What products have I used?

I want to give more examples of that capturing on the farm. So Supplant is a plant sensing company basically with soil sensors, dendrometers and the like, fruit size sensors, they are providing a farm view of each block and the plant stress. How the actual plant is reacting to your actions in real time. It's an extremely powerful tool. A lot of you, like I hope a lot of you are familiar with this, but this is another type of more agronomical focus, another type of data capturing.

Another company, a robotics which is a drone imagery company, they now have tool, which some growers use it here in the valley for fruit Calliper, fruit size, and next season, no promises, but coming next season, they're going to be fruit fruit size, fruit load, taking a picture of the bin, taking a picture of the tree with a click of button. You've got everything you need. So again, another type of data sets. Everything can come into the one picture, into the one place, with APIs as were mentioned before and so forth. I should mention for a sec, for example, we just did recently for one of our customers here, a connection between tie to the packing shed, so data flows all the harvest, all the beans, go straight into the packing shed. For more information, speak with Andrew here from Pomona.

So final notes. Microsoft and buyer partnership. So they just announced that Microsoft, with their expertise in cloud services with Azure platform, and Bayer with obviously the crop protection expertise, during this collaboration, which is quite interesting. It's not sure yet what's the practicality of it, but they, again, they just announced it. What it'll probably mean is that for large agribusinesses, they'll have better infrastructure to tap into and technology companies to base their technology on, I guess like, and utilize specialty sets of data and to take it from there, so to speak.

Simplicity. Simplicity is key, but there's few principles, and thing I guess I can mention, but if there is one major thing is the simplicity of the tool. So there's complicated stuff like farm management as a whole with what we do. And there is easier stuff which are more you can just, I guess put it on the farm and it sends it and you view the data and then you take action. But when you look at how to capture data and the whole mechanism, which is I'm mentioning in a third point, try to think, is this simple enough? The other point which relates to the data collection mechanism, support. So when you decide on how you want to collect the data on the farm, what is necessary for the a agribusiness, which tools you want to provide and put them together potentially as well, is what is the support that I've been given? Because nothing going to be easy at the beginning. Everything going to be like, oh, it's new, so you need to get used to it. Just examine the simplicity and the support and long term view, just think about what happened if you've got all this information, chuck it into an algorithm and it gives you your yield forecast, and every action that you take, every action you mode along, it tells you how it affects your yield. So probably most of you aware of the ChatGPT was released by a company called OpenAI recently. They just released ChatGPT-4. GPT-4 can recognize each insect with a click of a button. It was trailed already last week, confirmed. So that going to be available on platforms like TieUp Farming for example, and every agronomy agronomist is going to become a super agronomist, just like that in the next year. Every insect it recognize, it's crazy, and with a click of button, it advises you what to, what to, you know, to use against that insect.

So think about that, which is available, I guess you can say today. And what can be done with yield forecasting, which is the holy grail for all of us.

Last point to think about is when you collect data, you can sell your business easy as well. That's uh, another point to think about.