Partnerships that Matter: Advisors, Growers, and Technology Providers Working Together

In Beaudesert QLD where Brendan Magee advises growers cycling through corn, beans, and cereals for feed and silage, water management isn’t just about keeping crops alive; it’s about keeping farming businesses running efficiently. With unpredictable rainfall and high-pressure cropping cycles, Brendan leans on technology like CropX soil probes to help his clients make better irrigation decisions.

“Some of my clients are first-generation farmers, so they haven’t got that bred-in knowledge of kicking dirt and saying, ‘I need water on this.’ We’re playing harder with these probes. We’re now watching where the moisture levels needs to be. The predictability of the curve helps us make better decisions.” – Brendan Magee, Elders Senior Agronomist and F2F TEKARM® advisor

For Brendan, being an advisor means more than giving recommendations from a distance. He works side-by-side with his clients, making sure that the tools they invest in are delivering real value.

“I’m involved with my client's decision making. I’ve got access to everything, so we can see it on the dashboard. If you’re advising on something, you should be able to see it all the time.”

One of the key reasons Brendan champions CropX is its flexibility. In fast rotations, the same probe can be lifted and shifted across three crops. With the cost of irrigation, even one less pivot run in a season can pay off the technology. Technology is only part of the equation - growers also need confidence that help is there when something goes wrong. That’s where CropX stands out. 

“The product support was fantastic. When you pick the phone up, you get someone that goes like, ‘Bruce?’ It’s an authentic person on the end of the line. We set a probe up, diagnosed it, and it was an easy fix.”

In farming, conditions can change in minutes. Brendan mentions one of the features of the CropX soil moisture probes is the ability to easily install and remove them as needed: 

“Just say the river’s going to come up within half an hour, you can rip down the paddock, pull it out in a couple of minutes, and be back in the shed.”

For Brendan, the relationship with CropX shows how advisors and tech suppliers can work together to make farmers more confident with data-driven decisions. Advisors bring the local context and trusted relationship; suppliers bring the innovation and the support that makes adoption stick.

As Brendan puts it, the technology is there to stay with the grower - “It’s their product; they bought it, they own it. If they move on, they move on.” But with the right advisory support and responsive supplier backing, tools like CropX don’t just sit in the paddock; they help farmers grow smarter, season after season.

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Connect with Brendan Magee on LinkedIn

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This program/project received funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.