Last week saw the Yorke Peninsula Field Days take place in Paskeville, South Australia; this three-day biennial event is about everything agriculture-related on a 30-hectare static display site area. Agworld once again attended and we were hosted by our partners YP AG, who hand-picked a range of suppliers to join them in their marquee right in the centre of the field days.

Although the YP field days are the oldest still continuing field days in Australia, having been established in 1894, the focus of exhibitors was firmly on the future of agriculture with many displays featuring the latest and greatest in on-farm technology, precision agriculture, machinery as well as a range of finance, insurance and advisory exhibitors. With close to 650 exhibitors and over 40,000 visitors, the 2019 edition certainly was a big success for everyone involved.

When I walked around the site during these three days, I noticed a variety of precision agriculture technologies firmly in the limelight at quite a few different displays with exhibitors showcasing new ways to process imagery and soil data to better manage zones on their farms. Weed combatting technologies also got lots of attention with a range of machinery from weed-seeking camera sprayers to header-fitted ‘seed terminators’ capturing the farmers’ attention.

For Agworld, field days are an excellent way to meet with our users and have face-to-face training sessions with many growers and agronomists. These meetings also help us gain a better understanding of their unique businesses and how they utilise and integrate various on-farm technologies, which is very valuable from a development perspective.

The past few weeks saw a number of cold-weather events take place on the Yorke Peninsula, resulting in wide-spread frost as well as high winds causing lodging in a significant portion of this year's crop. Growers in the area were cutting large sections of their fields to hay, rather than harvesting grain this season, which will impact many parts of the value chain. Some Agworld users I spoke to told me they use the latest Satamap SVI imagery to identify and map frost-affected areas that needed to be cut for hay. It’s not something that growers hope to have to use Vegetative Imagery for, but it’s useful nonetheless when these events do occur.

If you missed us at the YP field days but are keen to catch up, we’re always available to assist you with any enquiries over the phone or via email; just drop me a line at chris.booth@agworld.com.