The success of Tasmania’s oyster industry is predicated on the quality of the water that the state’s oyster farms occupy, and thanks to The Yield, the farmers and regulators now have an IoT solution that gives them the ability to predict water conditions and take action.

Using a series of in-water sensor platforms that measure multiple variables such as water salinity, temperature, and water depth, the data collected is then fed into a Microsoft Azure cloud platform that provides past, current, and predicted future water metrics data for oyster farmers, government and regulatory bodies.

The Yield worked closely with Bosch, Microsoft and Intel to build the aquaculture platform, and has recently obtained significant funding to further develop this platform and expand to the agriculture market with a land-based solution.

The solution has not only allowed farmers to keep tabs on the quality of water, but is now also helping them understand the conditions in which the Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome (POMS) thrives, and determine the actions to take to minimise the risk of the disease spreading throughout their stocks.

Having predictive capabilities on water quality has given farmers and regulatory bodies more lead time to when unfavourable water conditions will be experienced, allowing sufficient staff to be brought in to remove the oysters from open water until the right conditions return.

For more information on how The Yield has leveraged IoT to improve the safety and operational efficiency of Tasmania’s oyster industry and its products, click here.

This project won the Primary Industry category of the Australian IoT Awards 2017, and was awarded the overall IoT Project of the Year 2017. View the other winners here.