While there’s a certain allure to eschewing technology and staying with traditional ways of doing things in any industry, there are also benefits in embracing it.
Last month Wine Australia held an agtech and innovation demonstration day – 5G in the Vineyard – at Red Hill. The focus of the day was a new app from the award-winning Australian agtech company Platfarm. Platfarm has partnered with Kubota Australia to trial technology that promises to improve efficiency and profitability for fixed-row farmers. The Platfarm app is currently being tested in the viticulture industry, putting users at the forefront of the digital farming revolution and allowing them to implement precision agriculture, GPS, and geomapping technology.
Viticulturalist Stuart Marshall, from Kooyong Wines and Port Phillip Estate, attended the demonstration day and will be testing the app. “In the past I haven’t really looked at the mapping and satellite imaging data that’s out there, but what I liked about Platfarm is it looks simple and it works off your phone,” Stuart said.
Platfarm was founded by a grower with a background in app development as a job-sharing tool and satnav for vineyards. The app makes it easy for viticulturalists to build a rich digital map of their vineyard as they add blocks, draw and number vine rows, and capture work done over time, building data to measure impact. Tracking work as it is carried out helps to ensure that no rows are missed and to see what work was done where over time.
Running on your phone or tablet, Platfarm lets you tap out the zones where you need to carry out variable rate work — or simply select the blocks where you want a job done and share that map with one of your team. For those looking for NDVI imagery, Platfarm integrates with DataFarming and Planet imagery via Leaf so you can direct the work you want based on the latest data.
“Growers can definitely keep going as they are and not use technology like this, but our margins are being eroded because of the cost of everything going up,” Stuart said. “The cost of diesel, the cost of fertiliser, the cost of chemicals have all increased dramatically. For us to be competitive on a global scale you must look at these types of things. They can help back up your decision-making and improve efficiency.”
Platfarm is available to download from Google Play and iTunes. To find out more information on Platfarm and how it could work for you, go to www.platfarm.com
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