PRECISION AG
Left: Yamaha has developed robotic vehicles to assist with autonomous spraying to benefit the wine industry in Australia
perfect accompaniment Well known for its motorcycles, quad bikes and side-by-side vehicles, Yamaha’s latest partnership sees it become more high tech
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lobal manufacturer Yamaha has signed a deal with Sydneybased startup The Yield that aims to increase the use of robotics in agriculture. Under an 18-month research and development partnership with global premium wine company Treasury Wine Estates (TWE), the companies will use robots to find new ways to improve autonomous crop spraying and improve yield prediction in wine grapes. The companies will conduct their research on vineyards in Australia and the United States owned by TWE, which is responsible for wine brands such as Penfolds, Wolf Blass and Lindemans. During the 18-month R&D project, The Yield and Yamaha will negotiate commercial arrangements to bring a joint solution for intensive irrigated crops to international markets in early 2023. Yamaha has already been working on robotics technology through the creation of unmanned ground vehicles and these will combine with The Yield’s microclimate, software, analytics and artificial intelligence platforms during the collaboration.
data sharing
Precision agricultural data and analysis can now be easily exchanged across Claas and Bayer platforms
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Growth stage data will be gathered with the aim of improving harvest prediction accuracy, while the robotic technology will also be used to optimise spray effectiveness and provide farmers with detailed data about the best times for each stage of the process from irrigation to harvest. The Yield managing director Ros Harvey says demand for robotics is rising globally, particularly for intensive irrigated crops. “We know from customers in Australia that we can double the effective spray windows for robots using our patented microclimate and growth stage predictions,” she says. “This improves robotic spray efficiency and effectiveness whilst improving environmental performance. “At the same time, the robots can passively collect visual data that we can feed back into our algorithms to continually improve them. It’s a win-win.” TWE general manager company vineyards Greg Pearce says the company wants to make the most of new technologies and opportunities to adapt. “TWE is proud of our ongoing partnership with The Yield to improve the predictability of weather and climate, crop yield, harvest timing and fruit grading – all critical drivers of wine quality,” he says. “This latest industry-leading collaboration brings together our viticulture and winemaking expertise with world class robotics and automation to enable us to better predict optimal harvest opportunities and efficiently irrigate our vineyards.” Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley chief executive Jim Aota says he is excited for the partnership. “We see this symbiotic relationship between analytics and robotics as the future for intensive irrigated crops,” he says.
Left: The Bayer-developed Climate FieldView can now accept data generated by the Claas Telematics platform
ield and machine operating data collected by the Claas Telematics platform can now be transferred to Bayer’s Climate FieldView platform through a specially-developed application programming interface. The interface means farmers can now analyse and gain insights across both Class’ and Bayer’s platforms; helping them to make better decisions in the field. Claas Harvest Centre general manager – product, Tim Needham, says the data can be used to generate precise sowing or fertiliser prescriptions for the following season. “This technology allows farmers to actively manage their productivity, reduce risk and save time by gathering data and conducting analysis all in one place,” he says.
“Site-specific fertiliser, crop protection and planting and sowing strategies depend upon access to accurate information about site-specific yield differences from the previous crop. “In addition to yield data, the system can also document important machine data, such as fuel consumption, to develop a complete overview of the efficiency and profitability of farming operations in each field,” he says. Data logged through Claas Telematics includes GPS location, crop yield and quantity and machine settings – all of which can be recorded on Claas combine harvesters, forage harvesters, large square balers, tractors and loader wagons. Collected data is then transmitted via mobile phone network from the machines to a server, where it then can be viewed via the Claas Telematics website on any computer, laptop or smartphone, where it can be exported to more common farm management software programs. Climate FieldView, developed by pharmaceutical and life sciences giant Bayer, is an industry-leading digital platform that provides data integration and analysis on farms, including information regarding yield analysis, field health imagery, manual seed scripts and field region reports. Data transferred between Claas Telematics and Climate FieldView remains property of the account owner and consent can be revoked by the user at any time to disable the data exchange.
THE TRACTOR YOU WANT IS NOW EASIER TO FIND
1/07/2021 5:22:06 PM
