eco -technology pioneers - equium · delivered eco-technology solutions to many agribusiness...
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AGRIBUSINESS | PRECISION AGRICULTURE | DATA ANALYTICS
TECHNOLOGY-TO-BUSINESS
ECO-TECHNOLOGY PIONEERS
Sometimes, you must look to the future to thrive in the present. Businesses that understand this will always be leaders. Equium’s ‘technology-to-business’ approach helps organisations to meet challenges in a way that’s effective, sustainable and scalable. Our solutions integrate traditional sector approaches with innovative and emerging technologies. They also leverage our team’s world-class expertise in geospatial science, prescriptive analytics and the IoT. Every Equium solution is built around a unique fusion of vegetation science, biogeochemistry, geospatial analytics and data science that we call eco-Technology. Equium is pioneering the application of eco-Technology to difficult-to-solve business challenges, with outstanding results. Every client benefits from Equium’s extensive experience in commercial science, technology and engineering. By using our solutions, companies can make more informed decisions about the future and take a different approach to old problems. Equium’s precision agriculture solutions help farmers, horticulturists and viticulturists to be more competitive by overcoming some of the biggest obstacles to optimum crop planning, production and risk management. They integrate science, technology and out-of-the-box thinking into new commercial eco-Technology solutions that are cutting edge, repeatable and scalable.
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Equium offers primary sector clients a wealth of hands-on science & technology experience. We have
delivered eco-Technology solutions to many agribusiness industry leaders across Australia and globally.
Principal: Dr Ray Merton
DipPHI, BSc (Dbl. Majors), MSc (1st Hons), PhD, Postdoc
Ray is a qualified plant specialist, soil scientist and geospatial scientist who is a global expert in
environmental monitoring, sensor technologies and analysis of complex natural ecosystem and horticultural
datasets. He applies this expertise to developing innovative technology-to-business solutions for primary
sector clients, with an emphasis on introducing new and unconventional science and technology solutions
that drive performance.
Ray developed and is pioneering eco-Technology, an exciting fusion of vegetation science, geochemistry and
data science with a wide range of commercial applications, especially in primary sector industries.
Prior to establishing Equium, Ray’s career focused on innovation leadership
roles within international commercial sci-tech organisations that delivered
cutting-edge data solutions.
His CV includes leadership roles at CSIRO, being an International
Category-1 Scientist, Principal Investigator, Mission Applications Scientist,
Senior University Lecturer, Centre Director, UNESCO Mentor and Advisor,
and a Program Leader in inter-government Initiatives.
Ray’s PhD focused on modelling plant stress with airborne and satellite
technology. He is also a geologist and ecologist who focuses on the
linkages between the biotic and abiotic worlds. Understanding how farm environments and plant
communities change over time is central to integrating this bio-geo-technical approach. Most recently, Ray
extended his geospatial analytics skill set by adapting many of the data science approaches developed in the
fin-tech and commercial sectors. He recognised its ability to unlock significant advantages that could be
readily adapted and adopted into the agribusiness sector.
Ray is the author of over 45 global scientific publications. He is an award-winning international speaker,
strategic commercial partnership broker and an entrepreneur.
As required, Ray will draw on his multi-disciplinary team of scientists and technology specialists to form
tailored teams that best matches your needs. His team members have backgrounds working within
international commercial specialist companies and as private consultants.
About Equium
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Equium’s agribusiness clients are looking for innovative, reliable and repeatable data solutions that support
proactive crop management and better farm management practices. Combining out-of-the box thinking
with the latest advances in science and technology, our new-to-market eco-Technology solutions boost
farming efficiency and create a more competitive, sustainable business.
Equium’s agribusiness solutions apply the power of 21st Century technologies to solving perennial
horticultural problems: improving crop yield and quality, reducing per-hectare running costs, and optimising
the use of scarce water resources.
We combine Big Data Science, Business Analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) with innovative thinking
and our deep sector knowledge to create specialised, cutting edge agribusiness solutions. Each solution can
be precisely tailored to our client’s needs to produce quantifiable benefits.
Specialist areas
• Developing tailored eco-Technology solutions that give agribusiness clients an early adopter
competitive advantage.
• Supporting strategic crop planning, production, monitoring and risk mitigation.
• Working collaboratively to help farmers exploit and deploy their hidden water reserves.
• Creating compelling 4D models for marketing, education and stakeholder management.
Specialised services for Precision Agriculture
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More and more, precision agriculture relies on technology and science to deliver simple answers to complex
plant and crop productivity issues. While it is possible to measure plant characteristics manually on the
ground as point samples at certain times, it is far more efficient, accurate and useful to apply geo-
information technologies across large areas throughout the season.
Creating an economically and environmentally
sustainable agricultural business has always relied on
understanding crop performance throughout the
growing season. Today’s farmers and specialist
agronomists realise that to stay competitive, they
need much deeper insights into the biological, soil and
climatological influences on crops.
Equium’s specialist eco-Technologies provide this
information by indirectly monitoring large areas across
the growing season, modelling plant physiology, and
detecting any plant stress development over time. These solutions have several applications.
Crop selection and performance management
Equium’s energy and water balance calculations help with the optimum selection of crop varieties for
any given area. By using Predictive Analytics, we can estimate when a farm needs to change to a
different crop variety. Our multi-layered approach ensures Equium’s crop recommendations are robust
and meaningful.
• We link UAV and satellite analytics with ground-based time-series crop measurements through
high-accuracy instruments such as hyperspectral spectrometers.
• We can run field trials using controlled irrigation and fertilisation for different crop varieties to
determine their best match with specific soils and micro-climates.
• We avoid creating generalised data trends from simple, commonly-used ratio indices such as
the NDVI. Instead, we create high value absolute measures which can be measured in the field,
and laboratory tests such as percentage of nitrogen or leaf water, which farmers can readily
integrate into their management activities.
Precision Agriculture Solutions
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Detailed reporting: Equium combines Data Science with the Internet of Things (IoT) and Dashboard
technology to deliver in-field and remote environmental crop measurement reports that help farmers to
better manage their crop performance. By presenting this complex Prescriptive Analytics information in
an accessible, highly visual form, we ensure it can be readily understood by all stakeholders.
Risk mitigation: Our specialised technologies detect, quantify and report change at canopy and plant
levels, supporting early intervention measures such as targeted spraying and changed irrigation. By
inter-linking the assessments, we enable variable-rate farm machinery to be GPS-programmed to locate
problem areas and automatically apply pesticides, herbicides or irrigation in the right amounts in the
right locations.
Yield prediction: One of our modules targets
and measures specific wavelengths of light
reflected from crops. Leaves utilise only parts
of the sun’s energy for photosynthesis, so by
measuring it, we can remotely monitor plant
biophysiology and biochemistry and calculate
growth rates. To more fully understand what
drives or limits plant productivity, we
integrate this complex data with in-field
measurements and cutting-edge data from
multi-temporal satellites and UAVs.
Seeding planning: Using our Big Spatial Data analytics capabilities, Equium integrates pre-existing field
and soil information, remote monitoring and detailed modelling with the latest regional climate change
forecasting information to predict the optimal time for seeding.
Groundwater detection
Equium’s solutions can play an important role in crop
irrigation by locating and extracting hidden
groundwater aquifers on agricultural properties. We
combine innovative, proven geophysical methods
and draw on the collective knowledge of an
established group of independent water
geophysicists, drillers and water extraction
specialists.
The team collects and analyses geophysical, soil and
meteorological data for the target area as the basis
for modelling reserve evaluations and 3D aquifer
maps. We then apply sophisticated Business
Analytics methodologies to determine the impact of
the new water reserves on horticultural productivity
over time.
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Do you use spatial and non-spatial data analysis as a business improvement tool? Equium has the tools and
expertise to collect and integrate agricultural data then analyse if from different perspectives, producing
actionable insights that help to optimise crop and farm management.
Equium sources detailed data for our
agribusiness clients using a wide range
of Big Spatial Data tools. These include
the latest in Geographical Information
Systems (GIS) and remote sensing, GPS,
mobile data capture and ground
surveying technologies.
We use these data sources to capture,
store, analyse, display and share
geospatial and ecological information
about the cropping areas under
investigation.
Services include:
• Mapping biochemistry changes
and productivity issues
• Using a variety of data sources to model, analyse and visualise crop changes over time
• Crop mapping for key plant productivity indicators
• Predicting harvest dates and yields
• Mapping and calculating crop damage for insurance claims
• Detecting hidden groundwater sources
• Customised data monitoring and reporting services.
Specialist expertise
As an early adopter of these technologies, Equium has a track record of proving the benefits of integrating
Data Science and Big Spatial Data Analytics to increase farm productivity and related management
efficiencies. We have serviced the precision agriculture sector with remote monitoring and analysis
technologies for over 25 years, analysing spatial
information using technologies we have proven in the
field and reported in academic journals.
Equium has hands-on experience of working with a
number of crops and vegetation types in Australia and
overseas, including rice, wheat, corn, cotton, canola,
pasture species and natural vegetation ecosystems.
Core Capability: Big Spatial Data Services
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Equium uses Prescriptive Analytics to provide our clients with evidence-based insights that assist with
forward planning and give them a competitive edge. This specialist capability enables organisations to
understand longer term forecasting outcomes - those related to data trends, certainty, mitigation and
future risk - that will impact strategic decisions. The result is that they are not only able to anticipate what
will happen to their business and their sector, but when and why.
A combination of high level analytical and Big Data capabilities that synthesises multiple disciplines of
mathematical and computational sciences with business rules, Equium’s Prescriptive Analytics Capabilities
are essential for any organisation wishing to remain sustainable into the future.
More complex than Descriptive and Predictive business analytics, Prescriptive Analytics focuses on
developing new insights from understanding performance-based measures and statistical methods,
facilitating action. Equium uses all three phases of analytics to perform analysis that is precisely tailored to
your business needs.
Firstly, we apply Descriptive and Predictive Analytics to your business information. By combining historical
performance data with sophisticated rules, algorithms and other data, we can determine the probable future
outcome of an event or the likelihood of a situation occurring. This reveals the most likely opportunities and
risks. We blend these results with our Big Spatial Data capabilities and apply sophisticated Prescriptive
Analytics skills and technologies.
The outcome is a series of robust, fact-based actions within a known timeframe, along with implications for
each option.
In order to scale Prescriptive Analytics technologies into existing client systems, our solutions are designed
to be adaptive and take into account the growing volume, velocity and variety of data that are increasingly
an inherent part of modern business projects.
Core Capability: Prescriptive Analytics
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Business benefits
• Competitive advantages of being an early adopter of the new field of eco-Technology
• More holistic understanding of vegetation change than from limited ground sampling
• Improved long term crop planning, strategies and management
• Access to detailed mapping for key biochemical and biophysical indicators
• Enhanced risk forecasting and management
• Faster, earlier and fully automated remedial action against pests and weeds
• Increased crop quality and yield
• Cost and environmental benefits of water usage reporting and efficiency measures
• Discovery of new groundwater sources
• Easier management and control of farm management costs
• More accurate harvesting and yield forecasting
• Improved stakeholder reporting
• Economic and operational advantages of analysing old data as well as new
• Cost and accuracy efficiencies of having access to the latest remote technologies
• Economies of scale when delivering scientific repeatability especially across broadacre cropping
Precision Agriculture Analytics
• Eco-Technology agribusiness solutions
• Full Prescriptive Analytics for precision agriculture
• Time-series crop monitoring
• Vegetation anomaly identification and modelling
• Crop planting, irrigation and fertilisation optimisation
• Broadacre crop biochemical and biophysiology calculations
• Autonomous farming inputs
• 4D and fly-through visualisations of plant stress and leaf biochemistry
• Geo-informatics and multi-dimensional mapping
• Satellite, aerial, UAV and GIS data collection
• Tailored risk analysis and recommendations for crop management
• Integration of farm management, remote sensing and ground sampled data within Big Spatial Data Analytics
• Historical interpretation and current trend analysis
• Crop change forecasting
• Groundwater detection & analytics
• Water efficiency reporting
• Automated remedial activities
• Climate impact optimisation
• Data monitoring, statistics, Internet of Things (IoT) and dashboard reporting
Eco-Technology Solutions for Agribusiness
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AGRIBUSINESS | PRECISION AGRICULTURE | DATA ANALYTICS
TECHNOLOGY-TO-BUSINESS
CONTACT Dr Ray Merton | Principal Equium
(+61) 0438 771 996
www.equium.com.au
ABN: : 45417531807