b"The Lindsay Corporation Smart Pivot sits in a soybean field. PHOTO: LINDSAY CORPORATIONRobot HelpersA newly designed centre irrigation pivot will do more than just water your crops, it will also monitor them and alert you of any problems. BY: ASHLEY ROBINSONFOR DECADES, centre irrigation pivots have rolled through fields and wa- neither of these offers 24/7 crop monitoringa Smart Pivot does though. tered crops. However that is changing as technology is allowing the pivotPivots are in fields 24/7 and can roll over the crop, whether watering or not, in to become a more versatile implement. This summer Lindsay Corporation will order to monitor the field.have its Smart Pivots, an irrigation pivot which monitors crops in growers Instead of having to hire a company to fly an airplane over the field, or fields, across North America and the world. fly a drone, or maybe hire people to come out and physically scout the field, It's a multi-year development project, Wade Sikkink, director of global(growers) can get more benefit from the investment they've already made. product management at Lindsay Corporation, says in a phone interview. TheTheir centre pivot can do more than just irrigate, which adds a higher value to coming growing season is going to be primarily driven towards large scalethe component for them, Sikkink explains.field validation of these different developments. It will be for the '22 growing season where we will start to really commercialize parts of the development of the product. (The growers) centre pivot canThe Smart Pivot is an irrigation pivot which uses sensors, high-resolutiondo more than just irrigate, which imagery and advanced algorithms to monitor crops, both above and below theadds a higher value to the canopy, while also determining if a crop needs more or less water. The pivot also supervises itself and can contact a dealer for service when needed.component for them. The technology which made the Smart Pivot possible has been years in development. With advancements in network connectivity through edge com- WADE SIKKINKputing, it has allowed large advancements in precision agriculture technolo-gies, Sikkink explains. If the Smart Pivot detects an abnormality in the field, it will alert the grow-The ability for network communication technology to be able to functioner through a notification on their computer or mobile device, and the grower in a rugged environment is one of the key developments that's allowed us tocan then send a drone to check it out closer. Growers can also monitor water start to do this, he says. We can actually use the same type of networkingintake in the field and decide on irrigation schedules through the platform. technology and communication hardware that's used in computer networksWhile Lindsay is launching their field tests of the Smart Pivot this growing it can be designed in such a way to work in the outdoor in the hot and the cold,season, they arent the only company trying to add value to the centre pivot. wet environment. Other companies offer technology such as remote irrigation control over smart Advancements in artificial intelligence also assisted in the developmentphone and computer applications. of the Smart Pivot. Sikkink says while artificial intelligence has been aroundThere are a lot of small ag tech start-ups that are doing this kind of work for a while, recent advancements has allowed it to be able to be used forto help bring things like artificial intelligence and machine vision to improving agriculture now.the operations of grower. Really anybody in the in the ag space these days is While the Smart Pivot can water fields as traditional pivots have done forexploring these kinds of opportunities, Sikkink says. I'm certain that other decades, the real advantage is the crop monitoring it provides. While farmerscenter pivot companies are exploring different ideas here, particularly given can use drones or do a traditional crop check by walking through their fields,our public announcements on the development plans. 32 SPUDSMART.COM SPRING 2021"