Narromine Pilot Farm

Rob and Susannah Tuck operate ten farms in the Macquarie Valley in a 40 km radius near Narromine. They have a diversified mix of 5000 ha of dryland rotational cropping and between 1200 to 2000 ha cotton under irrigation, and a livestock enterprise.

They are familiar with the advantages of technology and have been early adopters. They have been using GPS tracking in the controlled traffic management of vehicles in cropping areas, yield mapping as part of precision agronomy applications, monitoring sensors and internet connectivity for some time. Until recently, a major problem for the business was the difficulty of communication between the farms and from the farms to the office. Distance was one problem and the other was the number of mobile phone dead zones. This problem has now been largely overcome with the installation of new towers and reliable Wi-Fi connectivity which provides real-time data.