Famous for its wheat and wildflowers, Dalwallinu (Dally to locals) in Western Australia’s wheatbelt, is home to a grower group that’s all about supporting each other to become more profitable and sustainable by sharing information, resources and know-how.
Back in 1997 a few progressive local farmers formed the Liebe Group, to ensure they could keep up to date and be included in the latest agricultural research and development.
Now, with close to 80 farm businesses (mainly wheat, barley & canola) representing 300 individuals, Liebe Group members enjoy the benefits of field days, demonstrations, trials, workshops, hosting local research and regular publications featuring locally relevant R & D.
“A lot of the philosophy of the Liebe Group and why people are involved is the benefit to growers – the coming together and sharing – there’s a lot of peer-to-peer learning,” said Rebbecca Wallis, Development & Support Officer, and current Vice-Chair.
In 2021 the Group developed a network of 13 weather stations & soil probes and 10 rain gauges on various properties across the district to create a shared resource to help members better understand local climate and growing conditions.
“The farmers bought the hardware and the Liebe Group, with National Landcare funding, paid for the network development, installation and maintenance,” said Rebecca.
“Initially, farmers viewed the data on the manufacturers platform, however, feedback was that they were keen to investigate other platforms that were more user-friendly and able to display their data in different ways.”
In 2024 Pairtree created a dashboard so all Liebe Group members can see all the weather station, soil probe and rain gauge data across the district via a clickable map, in as much or little detail as they like.
Pairtree also integrates data feeds from nearby WADPIRD and BOM weather stations to round out the picture. This ‘agnostic’ approach – where data from different sources is combined – means it will be possible for other growers to share their own weather station, soil probe or rain gauge data with the Group, no matter what brand they own.
“Having access to all this data has prompted discussions with the Group about stored soil water, rainfall patterns across the district – because you can start to see where gets rain and where doesn’t get rain, understanding optimal spraying conditions and understanding more about frost events,” said Rebecca.
“Knowing about your stored soil moisture and soil temperature from the soil probes throughout the season might influence your decision about when to start seeding or apply nitrogen, so it can potentially save on input costs.
“The shared weather station network is also particularly useful for growers with more than one property in the district that are spread apart. They might have a weather station on their main farm, but not on their other block, so they can look at data from a neighbouring property that’s closer to help make decisions without having to go there.”
Pairtree Co-Founder, Hamish Munro says this project is a great introduction for growers to understand the potential value of agtech data: “There’s been massive growth in agtech devices, services and providers in recent years. Now Pairtree makes it possible to use data from different types and brands of agtech together, and to share it if they choose.
“The Liebe Group has a long history of collaboration and now they’ve got data from different devices, owned by different people, combined with public BOM and DPIRD data, to create a really valuable asset for all its members to share,” he said. “We’re excited to see what other cost saving and productivity boosting projects we can develop in consultation with the Group.”
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