ON FARM NATIONAL Stage one: water when something is out of monitoring and kilter and send an alert to CALUM’S LESSONS management our phones. LEARNED As well as accessing fast “Not having to go out there broadband at the homestead, three times a week in > We have ‘hard’ water. Scale build-up will affect flow Calum and Belinda’s initial summer means I can target meters, so we may need a filtration system. goal was to improve on-farm my crew to do a job, like > We initially planned to use Wi-Fi transmitters but they efficiency by allowing remote fencing, that might make weren’t up to it. We’re now using a 900MHz meshing monitoring of the station’s some money instead of just radio system, which is much better at covering the water points. spending it.” broken limestone landscape. “In summer we check our Stage two: > Things we’ll need to watch: salt air affecting tanks and water points three livestock monitoring components; cattle rubbing on weather stations; galahs times a week,” Calum said. and parrots chewing cables; birds nesting in towers. Calum has identified > Apart from Origo.farm’s intellectual property “That involves a 250km, mustering as another area (electronics and software system), everything is five-hour round trip each where connectivity could off-the-shelf and easily sourced from local hardware time, over punishing terrain, improve efficiency, safety and irrigation stores, e.g. solar panels and flow meters. often in 45°C plus heat. and cost-effectiveness. > Existing hardware can be re-used and recycled. I’m “It’s punishing on your “The next stage after water using old windmill towers and towers from an old body and it’s punishing on will be remote cameras shortwave radio system as my repeater towers. the LandCruiser. Vehicle and automatic gates for > With Origo.farm’s system, all data collected stays in a maintenance is a huge cost monitoring and managing farm server and is the property of the farmer. Not all and, if nothing is actually livestock,” he said. systems do that, so make sure you check. wrong with the water, you’ve “Our furthest yards are 65km wasted five hours, so it’s from the house. The plan is quite inefficient. Fit for purpose “Having producers like Calum to use cameras to monitor According to Origo.farm’s and Belinda to work with is “We’re now finishing stage the number of goats in Annie Brox, working closely crucial. We need reference one of our water monitoring an area, and then use the with Calum and Belinda to farms and producers who are project, which is installing same signal to remotely understand their particular willing to be part of the R&D water level sensors and flow open and shut gates, which challenges, as well as the and share their experiences meters on four tanks in the would allow us to target our technology’s potential to enable both the livestock home paddocks. We’ve also musters more efficiently. application to livestock and agtech industries to put in two remote weather “Mustering costs are quite management, has been learn and experience. monitoring stations: one in dramatic, especially when critical to the project’s our main cropping paddock “Murchison House Station you get together a light success so far. is challenging, and this is and one at the homestead.” aircraft, a helicopter and half “Up to this point we have helping us develop the ‘right The next phases of a dozen motorbikes, and been cooperating with mixed stuff’: systems that are fit the project will require you don’t catch anything. grains and livestock farms in for purpose, rugged and connectivity to the farthest Every time you jump on a WA,” Annie said. priced in such a way that the water points, 52km to the motorbike to chase goats livestock industry can take east, along the Toolonga you’re risking someone “The cooperation with MLA full advantage.” ■ escarpment, and 56km north, falling off. means we can do R&D to along the coast. “If you can look through a ensure livestock producers Calum Carruth “Once all the water points are camera lens and say ‘there’s can use tools that are E: murchisonhouse@ connected, we’ll only go out no goats there today, let’s common in other industries. hotmail.com to check when something not bother, we’ll carry on “For us, it is about saving Annie Brox is wrong. The software will fencing instead’, that’s producers’ resources E: abrox@8origo.com establish a baseline of what saving you exposure to risk and time, and assisting in murchisonhousestation. our cattle and goats usually and using staff time more creating sustainable red meat drink, then it will recognise cost-effectively.” operations for the future. com.au SNAPSHOT:Calum and Belinda Carruth, Murchison House Station, Kalbarri, WAlG Area: Enterprise: Livestock: Pasture: Soil: Rainfall: 141,600ha Beef cattle, 200 Shorthorn- Varied, native Varied, red 300mm rangeland cross cattle, and introduced or black loam goats and 7,000 rangeland grasses, mulga over limestone, tourism goats and wattle sandy coastal scrub heath 23