SpecTerra takes global aim

The international cotton and vineyard industries have become the global expansion platform for Leederville-based SpecTerra Services, whose airborne imaging system helps growers manage a field to its true potential.

The company is taking aim at the global market with its Digital Multi-Spectral Imagery system, a precision land management tool that enables users to better manage farms and forests.

The portable system is mounted on a plane and flown over a field, collecting data from the vegetation that is then used to measure a crop’s strengths and weaknesses.

“Early on in the season growers may also take an image to identify where variations in vine growth occur. They can then target those areas for site specific crop management which may significantly improve on water and fertiliser costs as well as resource efficiencies across the vineyard,” managing director Andrew Malcolm said.

Dr Frank Honey, who continues as chairman of SpecTerra Systems, originally developed the technology underpinning SpecTerra’s product.

“Dr Frank Honey has spent a lifetime in remote sensing. In the early 90s, he was looking for a few things to do and he saw a niche market for high resolution vegetation monitoring and set about developing a system for that,” Mr Malcolm told WA Business News.

Eight years ago Dr Honey spun out SpecTerra Services as a separate company to commercialise the technology.

Its main strategy has been to sign licensing deals with users, initially in the cotton industry and viticulture industries.

Now its services also include environmental monitoring with clients including the Water Corporation and several mining companies. Mr Malcolm said the company’s annual revenue has grown to around $1 million.

“The current strategy for the business is to scale internationally on the back of demand from growers of high value agricultural crops, particularly wine grapes and irrigated cotton, and then to move across other agriculture, forestry and environmental market segments once established within each region.” he said.

The company is already operating in New Zealand and has licensed service providers in Chile and Spain, both tackling the viticulture markets.

“There is some competition out there, but we believe we have the highest quality system particularly required for vineyards because of the nature of how they’re grown,” Mr Malcolm said.