Many growers today manage multiple brands of irrigation systems.
According to the 2013 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey, about 250,000 pivots are in use by growers nationwide. This requires operators to understand various types of pivot control panels, which takes time to learn and could lead to operator error.
Lindsay Corporation made the task of operating all pivot brands easier with its rollout of FieldNet Pivot Control in 2015. It’s the industry’s first solution for upgrading almost any brand pivot to full remote irrigation control and monitoring capabilities.
“We had a lot of pent-up demand by the time we released the product,” said Reese Andrews, Lindsay FieldNet business manager. “It’s a product very relevant to helping growers manage their entire irrigation system.”
Pivot Control can change the way growers manage their irrigation by providing a single consistent irrigation experience. It takes over the existing pivot, giving the grower full access to precision irrigation control and convenient monitoring.
“It is simple, it is very intuitive,” said Jared Gardner, a grower in Rocky Ford, Colo., who tested the product on his Zimmatic pivot and two other brands. “And the ability to basically tap into any system and have this product as kind of plug-and-play on there, that’s great. You can take a 30-year-old pivot and bring it right up to date with this unit.”
Unlike other remote irrigation control products, Pivot Control mounts at the pivot point and combines with GPS at the end of the pivot for increased precision and greater flexibility.
Growers can operate their pivot in the field at the control box or remotely using FieldNet—both elements automatically update together—minimizing the chance for user error. From a smartphone, tablet or computer, growers can control their pivots and equipment, including pumps, injectors and monitor sensors for pressure, flow, soil moisture, rainfall, temperature and other devices in the future.
“Making all my pivots universally controlled through one device is great and having pump control is crucial,” Gardner said.
Andrews points out the benefit for growers in drought areas.
“You can monitor your flows,” he said. “The sensors can be tied into the system. You have all that ability to do a high level of monitoring. If the system shuts down, you don’t want the pump to continue to run. You’d be alerted to fault conditions such as that immediately.”
Andrews said Pivot Control gives growers peace of mind by performing the exact way they want.
“They are not having issues take place resulting in loss of resources and loss of yield,” he said. “They don’t have a pivot shutdown during critical irrigation time.
“Pivots actually have a long service life,” Andrews said. “It’s not unusual for growers to have multiple types of brands of pivots. Pivot Control provides that universal appeal so you can get all of your systems on one platform regardless of having that diversity. The benefits include the labor savings of remote monitoring control and convenience.”
The system will send alerts to the growers’ phone to notify them of any irrigation issues.
“I water out of a canal and get lots of error alerts in water flow and power flickers,” said Gardner. “Being able to power back up from my phone is essential. It saves me hours of drive time and wear and tear on my vehicle.”
Pivot Control comes standard with 360-sector variable-rate irrigation (VRI), offering twice the number of sectors available on most basic VRI products. Growers working with agronomists and crop specialists to analyze their unique field conditions can upload custom prescriptions to FieldNet with a touch of a button.
“Once the prescription is created it takes less than a minute to upload,” said agronomist Lamar LaPorte. “The biggest advantage is being able to scale the concept of VRI over a whole farm or multiple farms efficiently. By eliminating the time consuming process of having to change each sector, it is a huge benefit.”
“You can automatically adjust the speed of the pivot stand and adjust the water application,” Andrews said. “If you get into a particular part of your field where the soil type is different and you don’t need as much water, don’t apply as much water. The benefit becomes optimizing water and energy use efficiency.”
Visit www.myfieldnet.com/pivot-control.