Stasko Farms is a multi-generation operation in Leamington, Ontario, Canada. Chris Stasko and his family – including his father, uncle, and grandfather, now 92 and still around the farm every day – grow about 350 acres of potatoes, along with peas for freeze packing, and rotate with cash crops including corn and soybeans.

Like many farmers who use reels as their primary method of irrigation, Chris and his family knew too well the challenges of irrigating crops with a mobile system lacking remote monitoring and control.

“When we’re irrigating and busy with other things, and trying to watch our reels, you don’t know if something is going wrong.”

Chris and his family also irrigate throughout the night in the summer. For Chris, his uncle, and dad, that previously meant taking turns for middle-of-the-night drives to check on their reels.

“We wanted something we could use to keep an eye on our reels so we didn’t have to keep driving around all the time and checking on them.”

So during the 2021 irrigation season, Chris and his family began using FarmHQ.

“It worked really well out of the box,” Chris says. “The setup was easy. The online instructions were simple. And the devices are good quality.”

During their first season with FarmHQ active on their reels, Chris and his family have already seen the impact. Several times, FarmHQ has detected that the reel stopped retracting, and immediately notified Chris via a text message. Otherwise, the reel would have been stuck, potentially damaging their potato crop. FarmHQ has also notified Chris that one of their pumps stopped working, allowing Chris to address the situation and get the pump re-started, instead of losing valuable irrigation time.

And those 2 am drives to check on their reels are a thing of the past; a “full night’s sleep” is much more common, Chris says. Now, with FarmHQ, if something does go wrong, they immediately get a text message anytime of the day.

Chris’ advice to farmers considering equipping their irrigation reels and pumps with FarmHQ?

“If you want peace of mind and want to work with a great company, then go for it.”