Looking for Innovative Farmers to test new sensors

[Antony30MHz]

Hi All,

I was recommend by a fellow member from Farming Forum to post this message.

I'm trying to find farmers and growers in the UK who are interesting in wireless sensing on their environment. 30MHz (www.30mhz.com) is wireless sensor technology company from Holland, where we can make any sensor wireless and get that data real-time to dashboard or any device. We are trying to make seeing you physical environment easy and more importantly cost effective.

Farmers in Holland approached us and asked us to help them seeing real-time data skin temperature, light intensity , temp/humid (dews points). An exciting one which I'm looking to test with UK farmers is this soil moisture sensor. With it being wireless , really gives you the flexbitilty to plant anywhere in the field.
https://www.decagon.com/en/soils/volumetric-water-content-sensors/gs1/
Early feedback is that is really accurate and could really help arable farming and irrigation.

Everything we develop we ensure that the data you generate gives you significant returns. This is always our aim. For exmaple the skin temperature sensor for fruits and vegetables like peppers and tomatoes. Growers are now preventing fruits from burning and now removing any wastage, in one case we help to increase yields by 5%, this was a ROI of 3600%. They also told us they have found new ways to increase yields further be increasing temp on fruits at lower levels of the vine. We are excited to hear what yields increase they get from this.

Anyhow be great to speak with anyone who is keen to hear more and help test our new moisture sensor.

 

[milkloss]

Well done, sounds interesting work. As a beef farmer I'm not sure I can be much help, I guess you're looking for high value crops etc?

 

[Antony30MHz]

Interesting...actually our first request was "Can you monitor my cow". The guys loved this and kept it as their logo, eg monitor you assets. A local farmers lost a whole herd to a fire and he was unaware until it was too late. So we put in wireless sensor temp/humid sensors to identify if any sudden changes in environment.

As mentioned we can make any sensor wireless, we have other sensors which might be useful to you.

Object Counter - This can be placed anywhere, so for example we have customers counting production lines of fruit or tulips. Also counting people and traffic.I suppose for you, how about counting your cattle?

Temp/Humid - Farmers are monitoring their harvest, cold cells and barns. It allows them to remote monitor everything and get notifications if anything changes from the norm.

We also have customers using wind, light, co2, vibration, people counting ...

I would love to see how we could help you. It's about you telling us what you would really value in seeing. There are so many sensors out there or we can combine others to get that data point you need.

 

[KMA]

sounds fascinating. Only got a little veg garden so not much use but the findings could be useful.

I already monitor and record a high/low general air temp and have 2 soil thermometers in each of my raised beds and it's already throwing up things I hadn't considered, like I accidentaly created a 'hot bed' when I took a short cut in building the first raised bed.

 

[Antony30MHz]

Ha brilliant, this is what we like to hear.

Do you consider the dewpoint at all?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Hi. I'm another beef farmer so it's less obvious what applications we'd have for your sensors here.

Can you produce a cost effective (cheap) wireless rain gauge? If so a number could be placed around the farm rather than just a master gauges in one place. Rainfall varies hugely in intensity and it could be the basis for a project to understand the impact of this better.

Also, at this time of year having a remote rain gauge that could be left in a field of hay could be useful.

 

[Antony30MHz]

Hi Holwellcourtfarm

Yes, actually the soil sensor is being used in replace of rain gauges. Potato farmers want to get better insights on their soil moisture vs at the moment they are using rain gauges. We also believe you can identify how compact soil is too. The soil sensors is wireless in communication and so you can place it anywhere in your field. It will come with 5m cable, so you choose the depth you want it to measure too.

Do you think this could work?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Hi Holwellcourtfarm

Yes, actually the soil sensor is being used in replace of rain gauges. Potato farmers want to get better insights on their soil moisture vs at the moment they are using rain gauges. We also believe you can identify how compact soil is too. The soil sensors is wireless in communication and so you can place it anywhere in your field. It will come with 5m cable, so you choose the depth you want it to measure too.

Do you think this could work?

I'm not so sure. Often, when making hay with showers around, you find yourself wondering if the rain that fell in the farmyard also fell in the almost ready hay field 5 miles away. If not it could still bale as hay, if so it may need baling and wrapping as Haylage.

 

[Pilgrimmick]

The counters would be very interesting for monitoring access via gates, both people and livestock, they are already used on fish ladders on salmon rivers

 

[Kevtherev]

@Brisel @Clive

 

[Clive]

Interesting...actually our first request was "Can you monitor my cow". The guys loved this and kept it as their logo, eg monitor you assets. A local farmers lost a whole herd to a fire and he was unaware until it was too late. So we put in wireless sensor temp/humid sensors to identify if any sudden changes in environment.

As mentioned we can make any sensor wireless, we have other sensors which might be useful to you.

Object Counter - This can be placed anywhere, so for example we have customers counting production lines of fruit or tulips. Also counting people and traffic.I suppose for you, how about counting your cattle?

Temp/Humid - Farmers are monitoring their harvest, cold cells and barns. It allows them to remote monitor everything and get notifications if anything changes from the norm.

We also have customers using wind, light, co2, vibration, people counting ...

I would love to see how we could help you. It's about you telling us what you would really value in seeing. There are so many sensors out there or we can combine others to get that data point you need.

Happy to trial in my farm

Also might fit in with one of my other businesses www.monitorandmanage.com

 

[Antony30MHz]

I'm not so sure. Often, when making hay with showers around, you find yourself wondering if the rain that fell in the farmyard also fell in the almost ready hay field 5 miles away. If not it could still bale as hay, if so it may need baling and wrapping as Haylage.

Ah ok i see what you are saying, yes I just softly checked, there is plenty of rain gauge sensors. Just a question of how accurate you need it. I will send you a follow up message directly.

 

[Antony30MHz]

Happy to trial in my farm

Also might fit in with one of my other businesses www.monitorandmanage.com

Thanks Clive, that would be great and yes looks like your other business is great fit.

 

[Pilgrimmick]

What is the range, battery life, and size of the transmitting equipment. I presume it fits to any sensor.

 

[Antony30MHz]

Yes so our sensors can communicate to the MOTHER (this is the gatewat) line of sight, we say safely 1mile, but the tech should do 5miles, we havent had a customer do that yet. A port customer using our sensors over a wide range and works well. Anyhow sometimes its not possible to get line of sight, so again being conservative we say 150-200m meters. Though the sensors can mesh together and communicate to each other. This means you can extend beyond the first sensor, a bit like a daisy chain but more flexible.

We always aim for each sensor we make wireless to have a battery life of 2 years. You will get a notification on a dashboard if the sensors are running low.

SIZE ? - you can see the examples here, all the transmitting equipment is in the casing. https://www.30mhz.com/sensor-toolkit/sensors/. If you have existing sensors, like one of customers had with ethylene, we can turn that wireless too with this..ZENSIE CONNECT https://www.30mhz.com/sensor-toolkit/3rd-party-sensors/

If its a new sensor we havent connected before, we just need to do some testing and make sure we get 2 year battery life out of it. We can develop anything new with you.

 

[KMA]

Ha brilliant, this is what we like to hear.

Do you consider the dewpoint at all?

Woa, only started recording a couple of months ago and just getting my head round the readings I'm getting, interesting though and giving me ideas for doing things better. For example the raised beds are around 10C warmer than the normal soil temp but tails off towards the edges. Soil moisture would be handy to monitor, not sure dew point would make much difference to me and I really struggle to get my head round it. Hours and strength of daylight would be handy to know although not much I can do about it.

pH is something I check regularly though. If I was a commercial market garden type operation then I'd be remote monitoring the same things. It's quite staggering the variation in conditions within as little as 10meters.

 

[Clive]

Yes so our sensors can communicate to the MOTHER (this is the gatewat) line of sight, we say safely 1mile, but the tech should do 5miles, we havent had a customer do that yet. A port customer using our sensors over a wide range and works well. Anyhow sometimes its not possible to get line of sight, so again being conservative we say 150-200m meters. Though the sensors can mesh together and communicate to each other. This means you can extend beyond the first sensor, a bit like a daisy chain but more flexible.

We always aim for each sensor we make wireless to have a battery life of 2 years. You will get a notification on a dashboard if the sensors are running low.

SIZE ? - you can see the examples here, all the transmitting equipment is in the casing. https://www.30mhz.com/sensor-toolkit/sensors/. If you have existing sensors, like one of customers had with ethylene, we can turn that wireless too with this..ZENSIE CONNECT https://www.30mhz.com/sensor-toolkit/3rd-party-sensors/

If its a new sensor we havent connected before, we just need to do some testing and make sure we get 2 year battery life out of it. We can develop anything new with you.

Thanks for the PM - are you using Zigbee ? thats what our store monitor and control systems are based around

 

[Antony30MHz]

We were using zigbee but found limitations to it, now using Xbee(digimesh).

 

[Antony30MHz]

Woa, only started recording a couple of months ago and just getting my head round the readings I'm getting, interesting though and giving me ideas for doing things better. For example the raised beds are around 10C warmer than the normal soil temp but tails off towards the edges. Soil moisture would be handy to monitor, not sure dew point would make much difference to me and I really struggle to get my head round it. Hours and strength of daylight would be handy to know although not much I can do about it.

pH is something I check regularly though. If I was a commercial market garden type operation then I'd be remote monitoring the same things. It's quite staggering the variation in conditions within as little as 10meters.

Yes exactly this is what even a greenhouse farmer found too. They couldnt believe the difference in skin temp of peppers at the top of the vine and the bottom.

We are developing PH right now, we have a few urban farmers who want this for aquapnics etc

 

[30mhz]

Hi. I'm another beef farmer so it's less obvious what applications we'd have for your sensors here.

Can you produce a cost effective (cheap) wireless rain gauge? If so a number could be placed around the farm rather than just a master gauges in one place. Rainfall varies hugely in intensity and it could be the basis for a project to understand the impact of this better.

Also, at this time of year having a remote rain gauge that could be left in a field of hay could be useful.

Going to hijack Antony's thread here!

With livestock there are a few applications that we have discussed, from purely a "tracking" perspective where we can partner with an RFID tag company to provide you with real time monitoring of where livestock is so you can alert if one goes beyond a certain range (escaped) or hasnt moved for some time (injury). I also discussed with a chicken farmer how we may monitor their night time behaviour, being creatures of habit if a number of vibration sensors can pick up increased movement due to a stress and this translates to reduction in egg yield then it is information that you need to and can then act on.

I'm not so sure. Often, when making hay with showers around, you find yourself wondering if the rain that fell in the farmyard also fell in the almost ready hay field 5 miles away. If not it could still bale as hay, if so it may need baling and wrapping as Haylage.

you could definitely build a "heatmap" of moitsure across your various fields, there are a couple of ways to approach this, as Ant said the sensors can mesh to extend distance or a case of using more than one gateway.

The great things is once you have the first few sensors going it is easy to build out and monitor other metrics you may have considered to difficult/time consuming or costly to monitor previously. This tech has been built to make the complex simple to install and use.