Weather monitoring AgTech comparisons
Weather stations provide accurate data about your farm’s environmental conditions. This is vital for making timely decisions, such as shearing or sowing schedules.
Benefits
Measurements taken through a local weather station are often recorded far away from your property. This can be inaccurate for your farm’s micro-climates, which differ significantly across a small area. Rainfall can vary from one gauge to the next.
The best way to gather real-time, localised information is through an on-farm weather station, which offers several functionalities.
Cropping
Cropping
Croppers can track temperature and humidity to determine the need for fungicide treatments.
Monitoring Delta T can also identify conditions at spraying times, allowing for:
- better management of spray drift and chemical efficacy
- alerts of a frost event, or the fire risk at harvest time.
Livestock
Livestock
Livestock operators can use AgTech to monitor live and forecasted weather events, which helps with:
- planning ahead for shearing
- rotating livestock onto new pastures.
Irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigators can track soil moisture in conjunction with weather events, to decide when to irrigate. This includes monitoring:
- rainfall
- temperature and humidity
- calculated evaporative transportation rates.
All weather station data can be accessed online, with varying dashboard displays for each product. There are different options for receiving updates.
Choosing weather monitoring AgTech
Discuss your requirements with the supplier, including the after-sales support that is available.
Consider the technological capabilities of weather station technology and whether it is appropriate for your location. These AgTech products can be self-installed or installed by a supplier.
Connectivity
A 3G connection is usually adequate, as monitoring devices only transmit small volumes of data.
In areas with no mobile connectivity, satellite, LoRaWAN and Cat-M1 connected devices can be used.
All solutions record data online continuously.
Power
Most monitoring technologies are solar or battery powered, but some operate via mains power.
Check the type of battery used by the device and monitor battery life throughout its use. Make sure the solar panel on your device is kept clean as this may affect its ability to charge.
The battery must be in an easily accessible location to be replaced.
Fees and charges
There is often an upfront cost for hardware and ongoing subscription fees. The subscription costs are for data collection and communication alerts such as text messages and emails.
AgTech decision matrix
Compare available technologies with the Weather station and rain gauge AgTech decision matrix ().
