Piñata Farms

Australia’s largest pineapple producer, Piñata Farms started with a single pineapple farm in Queensland, Australia in the 1960s. Today it is the only year-long supplier of fresh pineapples, a leading producer of summer and winter strawberries, and with joint venture partner, BerryWorld Group, produce specialty berries for BerryWorld Australia.

30MHz and its local partner in Australia, Royal Brinkman, have been working closely with Piñata Farms since late September, 2018. Piñata Farms deploys 30MHz’s pointed micro-climate sensors, substrate moisture sensors and 3G gateways in its Applethorpe and Wamuran farm locations. With the 30MHz agri-data platform, Piñata Farms is able to monitor and optimise irrigation, and collaborate with berry growers across the globe, at BerryWorld in the United Kingdom. Piñata Farms uses the EC and water content readings from the wireless sensors to appropriately adjust its drip irrigation system and nutrient dosing.

Through the 30MHz platform’s collaboration features, growers at Piñata Farms can share dashboards and create groups with the growers at BerryWorld in the UK. This allows easy comparisons and contrasting of the various berry varieties across locations, and enables growers to create comments and ask questions in the dashboard, streamlining the exchange of information.

The 30MHz platform is currently used by 5 growers at Piñata Farms, including Technical Manager Lee Peterson.“The ability to reprogram our irrigation and nutrient dosing is invaluable. If we get the substrate wrong for even one day then we stand to lose 20-30% of our yield,” Lee points out. “The 30MHz solution provides us with accurate EC and water content information from which we can take immediate action. Furthermore, through its intuitive dashboards and collaboration features, we can easily share the data with our partner company, BerryWorld, in the UK.”