Valley Irrigation Announces Tire Pressure Monitoring System

By Jim.Robinson|January 4, 2012

Valley Irrigation, the leader in precision irrigation, announced the addition of the Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) to its control technology product line. TPMS is not only the first product in the mechanized irrigation market to monitor tire pressure on center pivot irrigation equipment, but is also a proud recipient of a 2012 World Ag Expo Top-10 New Products award.

“We are excited to have been named a World Ag Expo Top-10 New Products award winner with TPMS,” said John Rasmus, Control Product Manager, Valley Irrigation. “With the Valley Tire Pressure Monitoring System, the exact location of the flat tire can be identified at the Valley Pro2 control panel, or remotely with the Valley BaseStation2SM.”

The Valley TPMS was developed in response to a need identified by the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI). With more than 10,000 tires and wheel gearboxes in their operation, NAPI needed a way to monitor for low tire pressure without having to constantly replace parts.

“Detecting a low tire before it fails decreases downtime of the pivot during the peak irrigation season, when irrigating is critical to maximizing yields,” stated Anthony Valdez, irrigation manager, NAPI. “The ability to identify low pressure warnings in the tires has really helped to reduce service costs. With the tire pressure monitoring system, we can now preempt labor and fuel costs, as well as time, by knowing when a tire is low.”

“There were many challenges in developing TPMS for center pivots,” said Rasmus. “Where typical TPMS for vehicles only needs to transmit tire pressure information very short distances, tire pressure information for center pivots may need to be transmitted over 1,500 feet to the center pivot control panel. Once there, it may again need to be transmitted several miles to either a central monitoring system or to a grower’s mobile phone. The exclusive relationship between Valley Irrigation and Advantage PressurePro made this product possible, resulting in the Valley patent-pending TPMS design.”