Apps: Keeping an eye on the farm

Special report - Monitoring KEEPING AN EYE ON THE FARM

Words by: Anne Lee

While endless scrolling through social media feeds isn’t great for the brain, the ability to scroll through status reports for key sites on the farm any time, anywhere is doing the exact opposite for farmers.

South Taranaki dairy farmer Chris Amon admits he can frequently be caught taking a quick glance through his report screens on his Levno monitoring.

He has the telemetry enabled monitoring systems for his milk vat, his fuel tanks and his water tanks on both of his farms – one milking 310 cows and the other 400 cows.

Chris says it’s giving him peace of mind.

“I do look at it all the time – at a quick glance I can see everything’s running as it should be.

“It’s amazing really – it’s a good feeling when you see the water tanks are sitting at 80-90% full, the milk in the vat is at the right temperature, the vat wash was done, the stirrer’s on and the refrigeration is working.”

He doesn’t have to be checking his phone or computer screen to get that “everything’s ok” kind of feeling though, unless he wants to, because he and his managers will get txt alerts for a range of issues such as the vat temperature going outside set parameters, if the stirrer stops or the power goes out, if his water tanks suddenly drop or his fuel tank levels fall.

“We’ve got them all set at levels where you’ve got time to get on to it and deal with it before it becomes a bigger problem.

“The water tank alert is at 50% so if we react when we get an alert we’ve got more chance of dealing with a leak or pump issue before we run out of water in that tank completely.”

While it won’t stop the problems occurring it means disasters can be averted and a huge amount of time saved.

“We’re not having to physically go over to tanks and check them so that’s saving time too.”

Fuel tank alerts let him know when someone’s taking fuel and can help combat theft.

The monitoring system alerts the fuel company once the tanks drop below a preset level sparking an automatic order so there’s no “ugh oh” moment running out of fuel.

Chris says a lot of the data can be used in other ways too.

“I can use the information from the milk monitoring for instance to help with decision making around feed allocations because I can see what the cows are doing well before the tanker comes.

“It’s another tool really to help with your decision making.

“There are a lot of good reports you can look back on so you can see how you’re comparing month-to-month – you could do a lot with the data but the good thing is it’s all set up so it’s easy to interpret and read.

“The graphs and everything really tell you a lot, but all at a glance.”

The water monitoring systems can be set up on pumps with flow rates telemetered to meet regulations and alerts and reports set so annual water volume takes can be managed.

The Levno systems can be set up for feed silos too to monitor feed levels and for effluent systems to monitor storage levels and irrigator activity.

Chris Amon – peace of mind at a glance. Levno fuel monitoring .

“It’s a good feeling when you see the water tanks are sitting at 80-90% full, the milk in the vat is at the right temperature, the vat wash was done, the stirrer’s on and the refrigeration is working. “