The weather is cold and the water trough is far away through deep snow. If only there was some way to check on that trough without slogging out there to have a look.
Ken Janzen of the Alberta Agriculture AgTech Centre has a solution. He and colleague Dale Chrapko, who is administering Growing Forward 2 funds for this project, have developed a remote watering system alarm that they hope someone will commercialize and make available to ranchers.
“There’s lots of technology out there to alarm things like poultry barns, hog barns, grain bins, that sort of thing, but we haven’t found any technology out there to monitor remote livestock watering systems,” said Janzen during an AgTech Centre open house Feb. 12.
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“What we’re trying to promote here is alarm systems that allow the producer to trust his alarm system to let him know if there’s a problem, so he doesn’t have to come out and check his system as often.”
On display was a simple line-of-sight beacon system, as well as more complex satellite and cellular systems.
The latter could send an email or text to a rancher’s cellphone if trough water levels drop too low or if the solar or wind-powered pumping systems experience low battery power.
Janzen said the beacon system is inexpensive, while the other two would likely cost more than $1,000.
He has tested the systems in field situations.
“The farmers are quite enthused about it and it’s been working well for them,” Janzen said. “I think we’re getting close to the point where this is fairly reliable technology.”
