Digital cloud lets farmer know when to water

To tackle this Mr Schur uses drought-resistant seed, evaporation transformation technologies, and a system of water probes that harness cloud computing and the internet to predict when to water and when to turn the taps off.

At the top of the probes are mini mobile phone masts that transmit the data gathered to servers where it is processed using complex algorithms.

The results are at the time held in the cloud

The results are at the time held in the cloud and displayed on a dashboard accessible online from any computer or smart phone.

Mr Schur says research like this has saved him $30 an acre per year on energy costs alone, previously adding in savings on chemicals, and the increase in yield that precision agriculture like this can give.

Although water sensor research has been around for some time, using the internet and communications research to deliver data to farmers is newer.

Other companies doing similar things include John Deere and PureSense, who launched a smartphone app to complement their system last year.

"Innovation in agriculture is moving very fast, and we're looking at a lot of ways of using the internet to gain information on what is happening on our farm," he says.

What I'm seeing is

"What I'm seeing is, in the last 15 years, that research as far as water management goes has in effect improved, and our crops have become more water-efficient as then, especially cotton.