A culmination of four years of research came to fruition at the Spyglass Beef Research Station near Charters Towers on Friday.
The Spyglass Digital Technology Demonstration Day gave close to 100 graziers, students and beef industry representatives their first glimpse of how the Digital Homestead project’s Digital Dashboard will simplify the management of beef operations in the north.
Those in attendance were shown how a vast array of technology including UAV drones; cameras; water sensors; walk over cattle weighing systems; and weather stations just to name a few, can be utilised to feed their data through the dashboard for operation managers to access with ease via their preferred web browser back at the homestead.
Graziers in attendance were visibly impressed with the capabilities of the dashboard and the flexibility it provides for them to tailor it to suit their specific needs.
In his overview Greg Bishop-Hurley, CSIRO, said the aim of the project is to collect real-time individual grazing livestock data for production management and herd genetics information to provide operational recommendations for graziers.
"Our task was to create the tools required to present the information in a clear and concise way to for operation managers to access,” Mr Bishop-Hurley said.
“The front page of the dashboard displays critical information pertinent to your operation so you can organise your daily business by simply dragging and dropping icons onto the main window on the dashboard,” he said.
“The dashboard will also provide you with information regarding local or external factors that need to be sorted out or prepared for.”
Guest speaker Michael Lyons, Wambiana, Charters Towers, said researchers and producers need to collaborate to maximise the potential of the system.
“The feedback we give the research team will help them shape the system to match data we deem to be most beneficial for managing our operations,” Mr Lyons said.
Project manager Margie Atkinson said with research wrapping at the end of the year it was time to showcase the advantages of the system for the northern graziers.
“From the people I spoke to during the day, I got the sense that once the dashboard becomes commercially available it’s going be a popular option for beef operation managers in the region,” Ms Atkinson said.
The project is a collaborative effort involving a research team from Qld DAF, James Cook University, CSIRO and Queensland University of Technology.