It looks like the Android app market is beginning to see some agricultural applications.
PureSense Environmental Inc. announced today that its Irrigation Manager(TM) Android application is now available through the Android Market.
The PureSense app allows growers to monitor their real-time field conditions and irrigation activity from their Android phones. Monitoring stations placed throughout growers’ fields send data through the internet every fifteen minutes and the PureSense Android application allows the grower to access that information in the field. Using the “offline sync” feature, the data becomes available on the Android phone even when the grower enters an area without cellular signal.
Bryan Alessini, Ranch Manager with F&M Oberti Inc monitors 1500 acres of almond and olive crops with PureSense. Alessini was a beta tester for the Irrigation Manager Android app. Alessini found flexibility a key advantage of the new app. “The new Android app has really given us added flexibility in monitoring not only our field moisture, but also the climate readings our PureSense systems deliver,” said Alessini. “It has been a dependable app and makes it so I don’t have to be near a computer.” PureSense has plans to release additional apps for various platforms in the coming months.
PureSense Environmental Inc. announced that its Irrigation Manager iPhone application is now available through the iTunes App Store.
Built as a mobile platform for PureSense subscribers, the PureSense app brings the reporting power growers have come to expect from Irrigation Manager to the iPhone, allowing the grower to be more informed, efficient and mobile than ever before.
Growers can access timely, accurate data for each monitored irrigation set. With a single tap in the Charts feature, growers can view powerful PureSense charts used to support important irrigation decisions. The Alerts feature enables the viewing and analyzing of all recent moisture or weather related alerts, including frost, heat and wind alerts.
The app is available through iTunes and is only available to growers with a PureSense login. The Irrigation Manager app can be found here. For more information visit PureSense.com or call 888.882.7873.
Valmont Industries took home two AE50 awards during the AG CONNECT Expo last week including one for its Base Station 2 with soil moisture monitor. Michele Stolte, with Valmont Industries, explained that with this system you can use the irrometer and then that information can be reported through their base stations and accessed at home. This aids the grower in determining whether or not he needs to irrigate and if so, how much.
The second award the company won was for its GPS Guidance for corners and linears. The system uses the RTK Star Fire GPS system that eliminates the need to install underground guidance cables and helps with precision application of water.
Another project Valmont has been working on, said Stolte, is a rice irrigation project using center pivots. “The main reason we got into this was to conserve water. Over the past couple of years, we have seen a water savings of approximately 50 percent as compared to flood irrigation which is mainly the only way rice is grown.”
Center pivots in general can apply water more precisely than most other forms of irrigation. This not only conserves water, but also saves the grower money.
AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album
Listen to my interview with Michelle here.
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You know that we have to love the name of this company – Zimmatic!
Lindsay Corporation, maker of Zimmatic® irrigation systems, has produced a new biofuels brochure called “Improving Biofuel ROI Through Efficient Irrigation Solutions.”
The eight-page full-color brochure includes information on key biofuel crops, the benefits of biofuels, market growth opportunities for biofuels, and irrigation management recommendations to help growers optimize the yield, size distribution and quality of biofuel crops.
“Several factors are influencing a growing worldwide interest in biofuels, including climate change, rising oil prices, future oil supplies, and exploration and drilling costs,” says Dirk Lenie, vice president of marketing and export sales at Lindsay. “Lindsay is committed to helping growers meet the increased demands of a fuel-hungry world and to providing growers with the tools needed to produce more biofuel per gallon of water used.”
The Lindsay brochure provides a step-by-step guide to properly plan and successfully complete a biofuels irrigation project.
For a copy of the biofuels brochure, go to the downloads section at www.zimmatic.com.
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
