Netafim and Arable Labs have announced their collaboration in integrating Arable’s data into Netafim’s automated irrigation and fertigation cloud-based platform, NetBeat. Arable’s unique field sensors and plant metrics combine with Netafim’s NetBeat platform to enable easier, more precise, and more reliable irrigation, fertigation and crop management decisions.
Netafim’s NetBeat is the first ag platform to provide integrated automated monitoring, analysis, and control for irrigation and fertigation. It was designed with an open-platform concept that supports integration of external new technologies.
Following a successful two-year trial spanning four crops over three continents, Netafim chose Arable’s technology for its proven ability to present valuable crop management insights such as real-time water consumption and plant development status, as well as microclimate parameters that can enhance decision making and improve irrigation efficiency. Arable’s sensing and analytics capabilities will be integrated into NetBeat’s Dynamic Crop Models algorithms that monitor plant development and provide relevant recommendations for more than 20 different crops.
Netafim NetBeat provides actionable recommendations to the grower about exactly how much water and nutrients are needed at each stage of growth. The additional input from Arable’s Mark 2 device will include daily infield NDVI measurements that can be used as a proxy for canopy closure, an important metric used to calculate crop-specific evapotranspiration rates and schedule precision irrigation. Netafim Netbeat™ is designed to integrate data easily from many sources, including information about crop status, soil moisture, and weather. This trial validated Arable’s claim that high-quality data can be collected easily and cost-effectively and deployed at a global scale.
“We believe that managing water and plant nutrients more precisely is critical to the future of agriculture around the world,” says Arable CEO Jim Ethington. “We are thrilled to be partnering with Netafim, the industry leader in precision irrigation, to deliver on that need to our customers.”
“We designed Netbeat to be an open platform since we believe that joint innovation is the way of the future,” says Guy Leventon, vice president of Digital Farming at Netafim. “We have examined dozens of new technologies with the aim of incorporating the best into the Netbeat platform. After comprehensive testing we concluded that Arable brings unique capabilities that will result in high value for farmers. On top of that we learned that Arable, while being a very young company, already has a significant track record and a relatively wide install base. This is exactly what we are looking for when choosing our partners for integration.”
Arable’s weather, plant and soil data will soon be visible in the NetBeat dashboard in 2020. In the meantime, the 40 unique sensor parameters from Arable’s Mark device are being incorporated into the NetBeat Dynamic Crop Models to eventually bring farmers better insights and greater value.
