Kaushal Gunasekara is the Horticultural Technical Agronomist at Austchilli, a chilli growing operation based in Bundaberg, Queensland.

Austchilli began precision agriculture (PA) practices in the mid-1990s and implemented GPS-guided control traffic operations about a decade ago.

The operation began using automated irrigation systems around three years ago and followed this with using drones from 2018.

In 2017, a Hort Innovation-funded project was established to support the vegetable industry in adopting precision agriculture technologies in vegetable production systems.

Led by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, the project worked with agronomists like Kaushal to implement a range of PA technologies, and assess their potential in vegetable systems.

Kaushal details his experiences, along with fellow agronomist Stuart Grigg,  this Vegetables Australia – Winter 2020 article, and on AUSVEG’s InfoVeg Radio podcast.