G’S FRESH GROWER EFFICENCY UP 25% WITH NEW TECH PUMP

LOCATION: Sandfields Farm, Warwickshire

SERVICE: Irrigation

G’s Fresh is one of Europe’s leading suppliers of fresh produce and is a vertically integrated grower-to-market organisation. Sandfields Farm is part of G’s Fresh’s proud UK network of growers who are trailing drip irrigation on onions. To make it a success, they needed an agricultural irrigation equipment supplier with access to the advanced irrigation pump technology coming from Europe.

Objectives:

• Move towards a more handsfree irrigation system.

• Technology needed on irrigation pumps for instant notifications and control.

• Monitor and control multiple irrigation reels and pumps at a glance.

Outcomes:

• Operator and system efficiency now up 25%.

• Immediate input response to manage pressure, leaks, and operation.

• Control multiple reels and pumps.

Customer Profile

Sandfields Farm, based in Warwickshire, grows 1,000 hectares of crops each year, that includes salad onions, asparagus, a variety of beans and peas, pumpkins and squash.

What stands this five-person team apart is their entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to be early adopters of technology on irrigation systems. This allows them to expand and internally diversify into new produce lines, new practices, and take on bigger projects.

The Challenge

A key challenge was to provide machinery to solve some common frustrations faced by growers:

• Pump unknowingly stops working, causing stress to plants.

• Lack of remote information, control and responsive inputs.

• Inefficiencies between pump and reel.

• Manually starting the pump for every new programme or clearing faults.

• Unsociable call-out times.

Irrigation manager Connor shares an annoyance at a lack of instant notifications from one of his current pumps: “you've got predetermined texts that you can send to it, but you don't get much of a response; and when you do, it might work, it might not. For the most part it's fine, but technology has always traditionally moved very slowly [within the irrigation industry]."  

How AMTEC Helped

AMTEC is the UK’s supplier of Idrofoglia’s new irrigation reels and quiet pumps. The equipment is controlled by an app that’s under constant development based off consumer feedback. The system has already saved the team hours in the field.

“You wouldn't necessarily understand how much that [app control] helps you until you get your first burst on the field and you don't have to drive 10 minutes back to the pump at the side of a river down a bumpy track that's probably flooded, to turn off the pump, to return back to the field to sort out your pipes, to return back to the pump. Being able to just turn off or turn down the pump and see it immediately change, really speeds the job up no end. Also being able to clear out the faults from the phone in your pocket, even if you’re a county away, halves the amount of work you're doing. You go from very labour-intensive irrigation to labour-less irrigation."

The Result

Connor can use his people more efficiently. Instead of continually fixing faults and running reels, they can concentrate on servicing the machines and now have the time and head space to pour into problem solving bigger farming challenges. And if Connor does need anything, he appreciates that AMTEC is not far away.