May 24, 2018

Lindsay’s FieldNET Advisor adds crops and features

Lindsay has added new features to further enhance its FieldNET technology and extend its capabilities to more growers around the world.

“The new features will give growers an increased level of customization and mobility, while helping them be even more precise when deciding when, where and how much to irrigate,” said Brian Magnusson, vice president of technology at Lindsay Corporation.

FieldNET is a wireless management tool that gives growers the ability to remotely monitor and control entire irrigation systems, regardless of electric pivot brand. Offering an added level of decision support, Lindsay said, gives growers science-based recommendations to help them make faster, better-informed irrigation decisions.

When it launched in 2017, FieldNET Advisor covered corn and soybean crops in the U.S. and Canada. With the latest enhancements, the technology now extends to 21 crops, including potatoes, alfalfa, barley, dry edible beans, sugarbeets and wheat. In addition, the technology is expected to be available later this year in several new countries – Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Portugal, Spain, Tasmania, Turkey, Ukraine and Uruguay.

Growers can now view irrigation recommendations from FieldNET Advisor via the FieldNET app.

“From virtually anywhere, with a smartphone or tablet, growers can now check soil water depletion and irrigation recommendations, access field-specific weather information, make real-time modifications to location-specific crop growth stages, soil moisture levels or rainfall data, have full access to the daily VRI prescriptions and more,” Magnusson said.

Some of the key new features include:

• A new “Irrigated Area” page that allows users to further customize the irrigated area that FieldNET Advisor uses to generate irrigation recommendations. It also allows users to select certain areas of the field that they may want to avoid or ignore when determining irrigation application and VRI prescriptions
• The addition of an “Unmanaged” crop zone to the crop type list, which allows growers to define a crop zone and irrigation depth for areas of the field with crops that are not currently supported by FieldNET Advisor
• Integration with a global soil database to provide more precise soil data for areas outside of the U.S.
• The addition of in-field adjustment pages that allow growers to update FieldNET Advisor based on field observations.
• Added displays and enhanced charting to allow growers to visualize crop water usage, irrigation schedules and rainfall events throughout the entire growing season.
• Integration with Growsmart Rain Buckets to utilize rain bucket data.
• The ability to prioritize different soil areas within a field based on past or present productivity and profitability.