By NutraDrip • Field Day 2025
A New Era of Irrigation: Digital Farming Comes to the Midwest
When growers hear the term digital farming, many think of sensors, weather apps, or automation.
But Netafim’s Digital Farming platform is much bigger than one tool. It is a full operating system—built to help you schedule irrigation, fine-tune fertigation, monitor soil moisture, control pumps and valves, and make better decisions across every irrigated acre.
At our 2025 Hiawatha Field Day, Roy Levinson, Netafim’s Commercial Lead for Digital Farming in the U.S., walked growers through how the system works and why it matters. Roy lives north of San Francisco and leads both Netafim’s Digital Farming division and global water-meter product line. His team includes experts from Netafim Israel—some of the original architects behind this new platform.
NutraDrip is proud to bring this technology directly to Midwest growers.
What Is Netafim Digital Farming? An Operating System for Irrigation
Roy describes Digital Farming as a “combination of parts and pieces” that work together inside a single operating system. It includes:
- Controls (pumps, valves, filters, fertigation units)
- Monitoring (soil moisture probes, water meters, pressure sensors, weather stations)
- Crop Advisor (irrigation + fertility recommendations)
- Workspace (your centralized irrigation-scheduling dashboard)
- GrowSphere controllers (field hardware that executes the plan)
Together, these form a closed-loop digital irrigation system—similar to the operating system running your phone or laptop but built for water and nutrient management.
The Crop Advisor: Smart, Dynamic Irrigation & Fertigation Recommendations
Netafim’s Crop Advisor is the heart of the platform. It answers the two most important questions growers ask:
How much water does my crop need?
How much fertilizer should I apply—and when?
Growers access Crop Advisor with a simple login, 24/7, from any device.
Two powerful planning tools:
- Weekly irrigation + fertility schedule
- Full 120-day seasonal plan (updated every 24 hours based on real data)
How the model calculates water needs
The system integrates:
- Reference ET (ETo)
- Crop coefficient (Kc)
- Crop evapotranspiration (ETc)
- Weather data from Tomorrow.io or your on-farm weather station
- Soil water balance and depletion thresholds
This tells the platform exactly how much water a crop needs to thrive—not too little, not too much.
Fully customizable for your farm
The model is not a rigid “set it and forget it” tool. You can fine-tune:
- Soil type
- Infiltration rate
- Wetting pattern
- Root depth
- Allowed depletion
- Stress thresholds
- Zone-specific differences
The recommendation is yours. You can adjust it anytime, compare multiple seasons, and build a library of protocols for different crops or management styles.
Fertigation Planning Built for Corn (and More Coming)
Netafim’s digital agronomy team has already developed fertigation models for corn, with more crops under development.
Just like irrigation, fertigation programs can be:
- customized,
- saved year-to-year,
- compared across fields or farms.
And one very important point…
Crop Advisor is free for all users of the GrowSphere platform.
NutraDrip growers can use these recommendations at no extra cost.
Real-Time Feedback: Soil Moisture Sensors, Water Meters & NDVI
The Digital Farming platform is designed to validate what actually happens in the field.
Through the GrowSphere One monitoring device, growers can connect:
- Soil moisture sensors
- Pressure sensors
- Water meters
- Fertilizer meters
- Weather stations
- Temperature & humidity sensors
Roy highlighted two key probes:
- Netafim NetaCap – an affordable multi-depth soil-moisture probe (4–32″) with soil temperature + ambient temperature
- Wet 150 – measures EC + soil moisture + soil temperature (a favorite of agronomists)
NDVI included at no cost
Satellite imagery is provided to confirm whether your program is working.
Netafim doesn’t use NDVI to drive recommendations—it’s for you to evaluate crop performance visually.
Green = healthy
Yellow/red = stress
Gray/low index = needs immediate attention
GrowSphere Controllers: Controlling Everything from One Box
Netafim’s GrowSphere Max and other controllers allow you to operate every part of your irrigation system—including multiple farms—from one device.
Hardware capabilities include:
- Up to 160 valves
- Up to 4 mainlines/systems
- Up to 3 pumps per mainline
- Up to 8 fertilizer pumps per mainlline
- Up to 32 filter stations
- Up to 160 valves per mainline
- Manage 4 farms independently and simultaneously
- Fully interactive screen + browser login
- Complete logs of irrigation & fertigation activity
If you’ve used older Netafim controllers like the NMC Pro, this is the modern upgrade built to integrate with the Digital Farming ecosystem.
Roy challenged us at NutraDrip to try and max out the system—something we’re happy to try.
Coming Soon: The “GrowSphereFlex” Controller (Solar, Low-Cost, and Designed for Smaller Fields)
Roy revealed a brand-new controller coming into beta testing: the GrowSphereFlex device.
- Solar powered
- DC control
- Wireless valve control (telemetry)
- Lower-cost option for smaller fields or simpler systems
This is a high-demand solution, especially for growers with remote zones or smaller irrigation blocks. More details will be available soon.
Does Crop Advisor Control the System Automatically?
Right now, Crop Advisor is an advisory tool—not automatic control.
Automation will be optional in the future, allowing growers to “check the box” if they want the system to run programs automatically based on recommendations.
Netafim is building this carefully to ensure safety, reliability, and grower control.
Why This Matters for NutraDrip Growers
NutraDrip specializes in subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) and precision fertigation, where every decision affects crop performance. Digital Farming gives growers:
- One centralized platform for all irrigation decisions
- Real-time monitoring
- Optimized water use
- Better nutrient timing
- Historical logs and zone-by-zone control
- Customizable plans specific to your soil, field, and crop
For growers who already use GroGuru, IrriWatch, or other data tools, this platform integrates seamlessly into the bigger picture of data-driven agronomy.
Ready to Explore Netafim Digital Farming?
NutraDrip is one of the leading Netafim dealers in the Midwest, and we support every part of Digital Farming—from hardware to installation to agronomy interpretation.
Contact NutraDrip to learn how Digital Farming can enhance your SDI, pivot, or surface-drip operation.
Watch Roy’s full talk on our YouTube channel. (Link Video)
Every drop counts.
Every decision matters.
Digital farming helps you get both right.
