Innovative automation technology has been developed at the Central Queensland Smart Cropping Centre to revolutionise the soil-scanning process vital for effective planning in broadacre cropping planning.
For a long time, electro-magnetic survey scanning has been a cornerstone in soil variability detection, analysing salinity, water, and clay levels.
Traditionally, this method relied on a scanning sled towed by an all-terrain vehicle, offering insights crucial for informed agricultural decisions and land management strategies.
However, in a possible world-first, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries team at the Smart Cropping Centre has developed an automated scanning process.
The innovation has the potential to save hundreds of hours on-farm, freeing farmers, staff and resources for other tasks.
The system they have developed brought together SwarmRobot Sunny and an ElectroMagnetic (EM) 38 Survey Unit and analysis service provided by Data Farming, two of Queensland’s stand-out AgTech and Innovation companies.
Alicia Dunbar, the senior innovation broker at the Queensland Smart Cropping Centre commented on the profound impact of this innovation for farmers in enhancing drought resilience and optimising farm agronomy.
She highlighted the potential integration of this technology into autonomous robots like SwarmBots, which continuously generate highly accurate soil and moisture maps in real time.
"The impact of this innovation for farmers to better manage drought conditions and overall farm agronomy is huge," she said.
"We can see this becoming a standard add-on to autonomous robots such as SwarmBots that are continually building hyper-accurate soil and moisture maps in real time.
Dunbar emphasised that these units provide a non-invasive, efficient, and precise method for assessing and monitoring soil properties.
"These units offer a non-invasive, efficient and precise means of assessing and monitoring soil properties and we’re excited to work with industry to make this a widespread tool for producers.
"The technology supports our research and production systems including soil salinity assessment, soil texture and structure analysis, soil moisture content, mapping soil depth and guiding our soil sampling efforts.
"The Smart Cropping Centre in Emerald is producing real-world results, propelling our research capabilities to better manage the uncertainties of the future in broadacre cropping that will help our famers to be more productive and more profitable."
The Smart Farm Initiative supports the delivery of our AgTech Roadmap, through taking innovative solutions and making them a reality for industry.
To read more about the Roadmap, visit https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/news-media/campaigns/agtech/about/strategy/roadmap
Central Queensland Smart Cropping Centre has developed a world-first soil-scanning process that is set to potentially revolutionise the future for farmers. Image supplied.
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