Creating a sustainable and autonomous orchard

Bundaberg avocado growers Austchilli have established a pilot smart farm to develop new technologies and tools that will help Australian horticultural businesses improve nutrient, water, and labour use efficiencies. Austchilli is the largest chilli grower in Australia, it also has avocado orchards. The business is family owned and operated, and has vertically integrated on-site production, processing, and packing.

This case study was developed by Avocados Australia.

The project began in October 2019 when Hort Innovation secured a $2.9 million grant through Landcare’s Smart Farming Partnerships program, supported by the Australian Government.

Avocados Australia spoke to David De Paoli from Austchilli and his senior agronomist, Kaushal Gunasekara, about their involvement in the pilot Smart Farm project, and why they chose to get involved and be an early adopter of the available technology.

How have smart technologies improved orchard operations?

David: Mostly by providing a means of monitoring the crop health, water use efficiency and nutrient use efficiency in real- time as well as providing a forecast for the next few days in terms of weather and irrigation requirements.

Kaushal: I would say there have been some significant improvements in our operations, especially in the areas of irrigation and fertigation. Before the project, we only relied on soil moisture content as the only criteria for irrigation scheduling. With the help of the array of sensors, we are now taking the other factors such as environmental factors, ETc (crop evapotranspiration), plant-based parameters such as maximum daily shrinkage, and stem growth rate. Further, we are considering the forecast which is provided by the dashboard on plant water usage. We also adjust our fertigation based on those predictions and plant growth patterns.

Has the Smart Farm improved efficiencies as a result of the smart technologies?

David: We have improved somewhat by adjusting our practices. Integrating so many different types of technologies provided us with a better understanding of the behaviours of the crop and provided some understanding of what to expect in the immediate future, while visualising our issues. We are also looking forward to getting the solutions derived from the dashboard by utilising it for the automation of irrigation and fertigation decisions to minimise human errors.

Kaushal: We are using a low volume drip irrigation system to minimise water usage as well as to improve water useefficiency. With the system, we can plan better based on the prediction of water use provided by the dashboard as well as the alarms. We also have customised the rootzones that we are interested in based on the age of the crops as well as rootstocks. This provides us with a better insight into the seepage and percolation losses and calibrates our irrigation volumes and fertiliser dosing rates to improve efficiency. We now have zero allowance leaching losses for fertiliser. With our dendrometers, we are monitoring our growth rates and making small adjustments to our fertiliser regimes to match the site-specific minor variations of the avocado phenology.

Is your farm more sustainable as a result of the Smart Farm technologies?

David: We certainly are moving in the right direction. We always knew there is a problem with not having a holistic approach to optimising irrigation and fertigation. Now we are getting evidence from the dashboard that there are deficiencies in the optimal usage of resources with conventional orchard practices through the sensors and alarms based on the sensors covering atmosphere, soil and plant-based sensors. We think the automation based on the dashboard will provide a solution to the problem and will create a sustainable system in the environmental as well as economical landscapes.

What have been the main benefits of using the Smart Farm technologies on farm?

David: Currently, the biggest benefit we are gaining is real-time monitoring of plant water use, plant stress, the efficiency of irrigation and irrigation water loss. Further, the predictions provided by the dashboard are utilised to plan irrigation and fertigation planning to avoid potential water and nutrition losses while providing optimal water and nutrient levels for avocado production.

Kaushal: The main benefits of the dashboard so far are to have real-time information on tree growth patterns, soil moisture status, weather parameters and most importantly the forecast of irrigation water requirements all in one dashboard.