After several years of development supporting agricultural contractors, Ag-drive is announcing a major expansion into farm management and agronomy, connecting agronomists, farmers and contractors within a single integrated system.
The Ag-drive platform was initially launched to minimise paperwork and speed up job management for contracting businesses. Jobs can be sent to operators, with field information and application details, and the operator’s progress is monitored through the phone app, including the route across the field and the time taken. Through the central software, owners could then transfer this data into an invoice and send it directly to the customer.
Now, the company is expanding the functionality, bringing agronomists and farmers into the fold to create a fully integrated system where agronomic recommendations, farm management data and contracting operations can be quickly and easily sent and actioned digitally – with all three parts of the app linked as required.
“The current offering for growers often involves multiple systems that don’t communicate with each other,” says managing director and founder Will Dunn. “We also had many spray contractors who wanted a better way to link application records with both the customer and the agronomist. We’ve been evolving Ag-drive to better connect agronomy, farm management and contractors on one platform.”
Agronomy platform
The package includes a field scouting app for agronomists, enabling them to record weeds, pests, diseases and crop observations directly from the field. Photographs, notes and GPS locations can all be captured within the app, creating a detailed digital record of field conditions.
Using the Ag-drive web platform, agronomists can then create spray and fertiliser recommendations for individual fields or multiple fields simultaneously. Recommendations can include application dates, tank mixes, products and supporting notes, with products selected from an integrated database.
“We link to the Fera database, so when products are added, the system automatically validates recommendations against current product information and application requirements,” explains Will.
Where the system stands out is that once the spray plan is published, it is automatically pushed to the relevant farm. If spraying or fertilising is done in-house, it can then be assigned to the correct operator or pushed on again to the contractor. The agronomist will then be able to see that the job is completed, as Ag-drive monitors the position of the operator.
The system will also automatically calculate application rates, either across the whole field or for specific areas. If a spray needs to be applied to the headland, for example, the agronomist puts in the width of the headland, and the system will calculate the amount of product required and the application rate. For applications that are done each year, such as those based on growth stages in specific crops, templates can be saved and recalled.
Linked to the farm
Depending on the information available to the agronomist, various parts of the form will automatically fill in. This includes the sprayer capacity. “If the agronomist knows what sprayer is being used, either by the farmer or the contractor, then they can save this against the farm and the capacity will be set for every application,” Will says.
Once the job is marked as completed, the app will fill in the weather data – using data from the Met Office – including wind speed and direction, temperature and rain data, enabling the agronomist to see the prevalent conditions that the job was completed in. “You can edit if there are mistakes, but we’ve tried to make it so that everything is filled in automatically when the operator completes the job.”
Nutrient management plans can be produced, using RB209 data to ensure compliance. Will believes that the key to the system will be the greater transparency between the agronomist and the farmer, as the agronomist can see exactly when these jobs have been completed.
Soil sample data can also be uploaded to the system, geo-linked to the area of the field where it was taken. There’s also the option to include mixed cropping, which will automatically adjust recommendations for spray and fertiliser plans.
For farmers, the functionality does not just include the ability to manage jobs and pass through recommendations from the agronomist to the contractor. It also includes health and safety checks, timesheets, field mapping, reporting and stock/inventory function, where all fertilisers and sprays can be added, with details of the amount held on farm. Importantly, this will link to the job management system, meaning that when a job is completed, the amount of product used is deducted from the stock levels.
“The agronomist or farmer will also be able to order chemicals based on the plans created, with a link directly to the supplier,” Will says. “We can monitor chemicals, seed, manures and even straw, which can be separated into different products based on quality, or where it is stored.”
An additional function is the multi-business view for operators. So, if an operator is working for multiple businesses, they can quickly switch between them from the home page. Will explains that future developments will include a costing module and machinery maintenance section linked to the telematics of the machine to improve compliance and health and safety.
Plans start at £20 per month, with a surcharge of £10 per month for each additional operator. The agronomist function will be £850 per year, which will include the ability to add their own farm free of charge and use the Ag-drive farmer/contractor account.