14/09/2026
“The guys will say, ‘Stop calling us, you’re on holiday!’”
While other people are on social media, Jaco Pauer is on FieldNET. Instead of scrolling through reels, he’s scrolling through his pivots to see which ones aren’t working and keep an eye on them - from anywhere. Even on holiday.
Jaco said that Parilla Premium Potatoes is already trialling the Lindsay weather stations, and he’s hopeful that FieldNET will soon give him even more information at a glance: “It’s my dream to have everything in one dashboard, including weather information and predictions, soil moisture probe data and an advisor that will give you advice on what to do the next day. You’ll always need to get your boots muddy and be in the crops, but I really enjoy the techy side of irrigation.”
Although Pauer is passionate about irrigation, he says the biggest credit for the farm’s success goes to Mark Pye, of Pye Group, which owns Parilla Premium Potatoes. The Pye family gave Pauer a chance when he arrived from South Africa 14 years ago, “and I’m still here, so that tells you something!”
At that time, Parilla had just 16 traditional pivots, and now it has a total of around 90, which shows how dramatically the operation has grown. It’s also home to a 1.5 hectare packing facility, the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, which uses water recycling to make the most of every precious drop.
That kind of innovation has helped Pye Group succeed even in a hard-to-farm location like the Mallee.
“Mark Pye is always willing to take on new technology if he can see the numbers are right,” Pauer adds. “When it comes to innovation, if you fall behind it’s a lot of money to catch up. But if you’re leading, it doesn’t take much to stay at the forefront.”
Continue reading the case study here: https://bit.ly/4xa1avj
