Imagine being able to take a day off without worrying about water trough levels for grazing cattle.
That scenario drove Katlin Lang and his brother, Dustin, of Vibank, Sask., to found a company that provides a water trough monitoring system.
Designed for troughs that are connected to solar systems in pastures, Katlin Lang says the cellular-connected modem will send a text alert when the level goes down a set level over time.
A friend came to them in 2018 with a request for such a sensor system because he knew Katlin studied electrical systems engineering at the University of Regina. When the friend kept coming back for more, the brothers decided to commercialize the sensor system in 2021, and now sell it across Canada as the FarmSimple Solutions company.
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Katlin runs the company himself.
The system is powered from the battery of a solar watering system, and has a float switch in the tank that monitors the water level. The system lessens the need for visits to remote fields to check on water.
Five fewer weekly round trips to a pasture 20 kilometres away can save $4,700 in labour and fuel costs in a summer grazing season, says Lang. That would pay for the system in a month.
Once there’s a monitoring system in a tank, other parameters can be watched.
“Our modem is designed to take all kinds of sensor inputs — temperature of water, pressures of water, temperatures of buildings,” says Lang. “You can install these temperature monitors in watering bowls and pump houses and well sheds and even in vacant buildings where you have plumbing.”
Water quality for cows is a challenge on the Prairies, especially in southeastern Saskatchewan, says Lang. Water is often pumped from above-ground sources and quality declines later in the summer.
A sensor could monitor conductivity in the water and alert the manager when the water has high levels of algae or other substances, but the main goal is to simplify water monitoring.
“We’re trying to free up some time for you.”
