Trimble enhances its Connected Farm Solution with bundled packages

Trimble announced recently that its Connected Farm™ solution will be available in Free or Standard subscription bundles to suit growers with varying farm management requirements. The Connected Farm entry level bundle is an easy-to-use free entry point for growers to organize and access their precision farming data from any desktop computer or mobile device connected to the Internet. The Connected Farm Standard bundle expands upon the entry level bundle to serve as an advanced total farm solution including fleet management and utilization, crop health monitoring, precipitation monitoring and unlimited data exchange between the office and field, allowing growers to improve efficiency across multiple aspects of their operations.

The Connected Farm entry level bundle is available at no cost to growers and allows them to:

1. View field task data such as yield maps to improve variable rate management of farm inputs.

2. Track and calculate profit and loss for each field to better understand which fields are performing stronger than others and prioritize and / or modify their activities.

3. View prescription and management zone maps from crop or irrigation advisors, resulting in time savings and better collaboration.

4. Use the Connected Farm mobile apps for in-field record keeping, mapping and scouting to streamline data management in the field and save time.

5. Customize a dashboard for viewing key farm information in one central location such as commodity markets by DTN / The Progressive Farmer, weather forecasts, rainfall totals and pivot irrigators, giving growers full visibility of their operations and enabling better decision making.

The Connected Farm Standard bundle is available as a twelve-month subscription priced as low as $3,500 for up to 2,000 acres and includes all functionality from the entry bundle, plus more advanced capabilities to: 

1. Remotely manage field activities through unlimited wireless data transfer between the field and office so data is received quicker for more informed decisions. For example, with wireless data transfer a farm manager can identify mistakes as they occur and remedy them before yield is impacted.

2. Access fleet management for viewing fleet locations, receiving geo-fence and curfew alerts, viewing historical positions to enable improved fleet utilization and productivity.

3. Monitor in-season crop health using calibrated PurePixel™ imagery to target specific locations for crop scouting. Access to crop health information can save time and increase efficiency by revealing the location of problem areas that need to be addressed.

4. Process unlimited imagery from Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) mapping. This enables greater ease-of-use by eliminating an additional complex image processing application and providing growers with the data in one central location within Connected Farm.

5. Integrate as-applied maps, field task data and fleet telematics data from other industry information platforms, allowing growers to access all their information within one centralized location in Connected Farm.

In addition, growers who prefer to purchase Connected Farm solutions individually can still do so.

"By providing Connected Farm in bundled packages we've made it easier for growers to begin using online farm management tools and upgrade to more advanced capabilities as their needs change or as they become more familiar with those tools," said Pierre-Andre Rebeyrat, marketing director for Trimble's Agriculture Division. "Purchasing the Connected Farm Standard package provides greater value at a lower price versus purchasing connectivity, fleet and data management features separately. We will continue to evolve our Connected Farm bundles to ensure they provide ongoing value to growers and meet their changing needs."

The Connected Farm entry level and Standard bundles are expected to be available in September of 2015.