Remotely Managing Pumps on the Farm

Cade Qualls has been farming in Lake City, Arkansas, for nearly sixteen years. He’s a third generation farmer who produces grain, cotton, corn and soybeans on his farm of 4000 acres. With crops that cover about 30 to 40 miles (48.3 to 64.4 kilometers) of land, Qualls does a substantial amount of watering. The process can take place for up to twelve hours a day, sometimes more, depending on the time of year and environmental conditions. Right now Qualls has several irrigation pumps and center pivots on his property and each of them are used quite heavily in this prominent farming community.

Qualls Farms produces grain, cotton, corn and soybeans on 4000 acres.
THE PROBLEM
During watering season, irrigation happens several days in a row. This has always meant that Qualls must be present at the farm at nearly all times to ensure that nothing goes wrong (such as power loss or equipment malfunction) with the pumps or the pivots. If something happens while he is away from the farm, it can lead to hundreds of gallons of wasted water, crops being over-watered, or crops not being watered at all if a piece of equipment malfunctions. It’s a risk he can’t take, so as a result, Qualls would spend much of his time driving across his 30 to 40 miles (48.3 to 64.4 kilometers) of land, checking on the pumps and pivots throughout each day of watering.
While this is how the Qualls family has run their farm for decades—checking on pumps and pivots throughout growing season—Qualls hoped to find a more convenient way to manage the equipment.

THE SOLUTION
One day in late spring of 2014, Qualls was at his local John Deere dealership when his dealer introduced him to the Net Irrigate PumpProxy and PivotProxy. These products allow irrigators to manage pumps and pivots from the convenience of their phone, through a mobile app.
Net Irrigate estimates the use of PumpProxy has the potential to conserve approximately 5 percent of gravity flow irrigation water per year, or about 800 billion gallons (over three trillion liters) of water per year in the United States, as well as reduce total energy pumping expenditures by $96 million annually and automotive fuel expenditures for field travel by $22 million.

PumpProxy
PumpProxy allows irrigators to remotely monitor, start and shut down irrigation pumps. When used with center pivots, it eliminates the need for kill wires to associated irrigation wells. Functionality includes a virtual timer to set the pump to turn off at a given time online or through the mobile app. Its remote start and stop function will control the pump with a phone call or with the mobile app. Also, the thermal overload/ power failure notifications can alert up to ten recipients of thermal overload or other power failure via call, text, or email, and its safety stop alerts provide notifications when your pump starts or stops.
PivotProxy
PivotProxy provides comprehensive pivot monitoring and security. The PivotProxy works seamlessly with all brands of pivots. When a pivot stops, the safety stop alerts function sends text, voice or email notifications, and the remote shut down function can stop the pivot with a phone call, online, or through the mobile app. GPS allows operators to check the heading of the pivot via web or phone, and the virtual stop-in-slot can set multiple check points and automatic stops.

WireRat
In addition, both the PumpProxy and PivotProxy were outfitted with Net Irrigate’s WireRat technology, which offers farmers the ability to better protect the valuable copper wire on their pivot and pump irrigation systems by immediately sending alerts via phone, email or text when a copper wire is cut. The technology has led to more than 60 thieves being arrested, and more than 200 being caught in the act and scared away.
While Qualls has never had an attempted copper wire theft on his farms, he knows other farmers who have. He says he was happy to have the copper wire theft protection, but was most attracted to the ability to turn his pumps and pivots on and off remotely.
“What I liked about these products is that I can be anywhere and use them,” says Qualls. “I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night, or miss out on weekends with family in order to stay back at the farm. I just have to pull out my iPhone and control them from anywhere—the lake, St. Louis, it doesn’t matter.”
Since purchasing one PumpProxy and one PivotProxy, Qualls has been accessing the mobile apps 3-4 times a day during watering season. One instance in which this has been especially helpful is when the power goes out in the area. It happened a few times in the summer of 2014. Whether the power goes out entirely, or just flickers, doesn’t matter—the pivots and pumps will turn off and won’t automatically re-start when the power comes back on. In the past, Qualls had to go out and check all the pivots that were in use when this happens and re-start them manually. This was especially inconvenient because sometimes outages would only affect certain areas in his acreage, but he wouldn’t know which pump or pivots had turned off. Qualls would waste valuable watering time driving, stopping and checking each one with every electrical surge. Since investing in the PumpProxy and PivotProxy, he’s been notified immediately of outages and has been able to turn the pumps or pivots back on remotely.
CONCLUSION
Since purchasing the Net Irrigate products, Qualls says he’s been able to enjoy time away from the farm more often, since he doesn’t have to wait around to manually turn a pump or pivot on or off. He says he is considering purchasing more of these products possibly as soon as this year. For Qualls, the additional free time and peace of mind is more than worth it. ■
About The Author
Eddie DeSalle is the CEO and founder of Net Irrigate, a manufacturer of wireless irrigation monitoring technology for the agriculture industry.  The company’s hardware and software solutions are designed to notify irrigators of costly events, and its products include WireRat®, PivotProxy® and PumpProxy®. DeSalle is an alumnus of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University where he received his MBA with a focus in new product marketing and management. For more info, visit www.netirrigate.com.