CASE STUDY:
Pro-active precision farming
How Kleine Zalze improves the quality of produce and saves crops from parasites
Henning Retief is the viticulturist at Kleine Zalze in
Stellenbosch. Henning has been with Kleine Zalze for over
15 years and is responsible for managing the vineyard.
Farm vehicle monitoring and insights
Kleine Zalze uses Farmtrack real-time vehicle tracking to monitor crop spraying and act quickly when they see some of the vineyards are not being sprayed correctly. “One can quickly pick up when a tractor operator has missed a row or two on the software.”
Challenges
- Consistently monitoring and delivering
high quality produce - Parasites as a result of missing rows
when spraying - Costs of chemical waste
- Maintenance of farm vehicles and equipment
Benefits
- Precision farming to deliver high quality produce
- Real-time farm vehicle monitoring and insights
- Proactively pick up missed rows and spray before parasites harm produce
- Improve driver behaviour Better care and maintenance of farm vehicles
“Farmtrack helps us to see how we can refine the farm. You can’t know what you don’t measure.”
Proactively saving crops from parasites
Henning believes that the success of the Farmtrack device lies in the fact that it allows them to be proactive. If a row has been missed, they can immediately jump in and correct the error. This avoids the produce from those rows going to waste because of parasites.
Just like the mixing process, the application process is very important. If the chemicals are not applied correctly, fungal diseases can take hold very quickly, leaving the entire crop at risk. “Our goal is to give a good, healthy harvest to
the winery which will end up delivering a good quality product to the market.”
Improve driver behaviour
“Farmtrack also encourages tractor operators to pay more attention to what they are doing and to drive carefully.” Henning says the application of chemicals is a very specific and expensive process, so it is extremely important to monitor
that process from the start.
Better care and maintenance of farm vehicles
The software helps farmers and drivers to check whether the speed at which the chemicals are applied is correct. Farmtrack monitors whether the calibration speed that should be driven is followed, also taking better care of the vehicles and machinery. “There’s much better record keeping for when we need to have the vehicles or machinery serviced. Farmtrack definitely helps with the overall lifetime extension of the machinery.”
At Kleine Zalze, the focus is to follow the disease control strategy and execute it correctly. “This is being applied with great success. We can go back and see: Have any rows been missed? Has the correct speed been driven? It prevents us from having to go back afterwards with more chemicals to correct a fungal problem.”
Precision farming to deliver high quality produce
Henning noted that Farmtrack also helps them with time management. Using the software, they can monitor how long it takes to refuel or fill up chemical tanks. “At Kleine Zalze, we’ve been focusing more on precision farming over the last few years, and that ranges from planting practice to satellite imagery. Farmtrack helps us to be more precise and to better protect our crop so that we can deliver a high quality product in the end.”
“Farmtrack helps us to be more precise and to better protect our crop so that we can deliver a high quality product in the end."
