This year has been the first for full-scale trials of Valley Insights—the product resulting of a partnership between Valley Pivots and Prospera.

Aiming to make pivots ‘Autonomous Crop Management Machines’, the service aims to detect crop health and water needs before it’s too late.

The first year of trials included sites in Washington and Nebraska where the companies say they were successful in demonstrating how to turn data into useful, actionable information.

Using artificial intelligence, Valley Insights can be used to scout for areas of plant stress, which is then analyzed (for example to identify under-watering or over-watering), so the grower can take the next step to address the issue.

“Valley Insights analyzes the images and alerts growers to possible crop threats before they become big problems. It has saved our users a lot of valuable time they can now dedicate elsewhere,” Troy Long, Senior Director of Product Management for Valley Irrigation said in a news release.

Here are two test cooperators sharing their experience:

“When Valley Insights identifies under-watering in certain sectors and alerts us that sprinklers appear to be plugged on certain spans, that’s exactly what’s happening. We have another eye in the field, so we can identify issues and make corrections long before we could see stress on our crops with the naked eye. We can fix minor issues before they become major problems, which saves us both time and money.” ---Henry Boersma, who grows diversified row crops outside of Moses Lake, WA.

“One of my customers has very little water allocated to his operation. By using Valley Insights, he makes sure his crops get an even application. He’s able to fix issues with his irrigation equipment promptly so he’s not wasting his limited supply of water.” --- Thad Taylor, Sales Manager of Lad Irrigation South.

Customer feedback from 2019 has already been taken into the development pipeline by Valley, which aims to incorporate advancements as a direct result of that feedback for 2020.