It's no secret the right amount of water and nutrients can be the difference between an average and an outstanding crop.
Timely access to this information during a crop's growth cycle is also crucial and that's why consultants Tim Hyde, Ivor Gaylard and Rod Campbell decided to streamline and systemise how this advice is shared.
Six years ago the trio set about designing, building and testing what became the Swan Systems platform.
The platform aggregates and processes data on irrigation, soil moisture, weather and satellite imagery.
Swan Systems CEO and founding director Tim Hyde said whenever the growers they worked with managed both water and fertiliser well, they witnessed huge uplifts in production and profitability.
"We generally find water and nutrients make up for about 80 per cent of a crop's success, realistically making it the greatest determining factor in efficiency and production, so it is incredibly important to get this right," Mr Hyde said.
"The systems we were advising our clients to use were working extremely well, but there is only so much that can be done on a face-to-face consultancy basis.
"We saw a huge opportunity to put our systems in the cloud to give greater access to users, to scale our business and to have a meaningful impact on the sustainability and profitability of agriculture."
The information feeding the Swan Systems platform comes from more than 80 partners, 25 per cent of which are located in Australia and 75pc are based overseas.
Farmers and consultants can then use this information to help plan weekly schedules, manage annual water use, and inform fertiliser and nutrient applications.
Daily satellite crop imagery is also collected, which can be used to track crop health and quickly pinpoint issues.
While the research on the benefits of a data-driven water and nutrient management strategy are clear, Mr Hyde said what had been lacking was a cost-effective, easy-to-use system with all of the best-practice solutions in one place.
"And that is exactly the space we are trying to fill at Swan Systems," he said.
"Our goal is to be the preferred operating system for enterprises that use irrigation, both here in Australia and across the world."
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The Perth-based business recognised international markets like the 3.5 million hectares of irrigated agriculture in California alone presented an avenue to expand its reach.
As a result, Mr Hyde now regularly travels to California to spend time with the Swan Systems team based there.
"We simply could not develop our systems purely for the Australian market as it is just too small and development costs would mean our business case just would not stack up," he said.
"By spreading these costs over a larger market, we have an opportunity to offer a better and more sophisticated product to our own market, which can also mean a far more competitive price point for our customers."
The Swan Systems team are continually searching for research and ways to grow the platform's offering.
They have found AgriFutures Australia's GrowAg database has simplified this process and led to networking and partnership opportunities.
"Prior to GrowAg we often didn't know what research projects existed, as there was no real mechanism, unless you really kept an eye on each state and federal research organisation," Mr Hyde said.
"We often saw the same research being conducted across multiple crop types. It is a far more efficient use of funds if strategies and applications, which suit more than one crop are identified, and a more collaborative approach is taken."
Mr Hyde said connecting the right researcher with the right outcome was especially important to the business.
He said even if the technology and projects identified weren't commercially ready, they would consider creating a partnership to provide more funding to the researchers and help them move to the level they need to be.
