Agriculture Monitoring

What tanks can you monitor on a farm?

You can monitor nearly every storage tank on a farm or ranch, including farm fuel, propane, livestock water, irrigation water, and liquid fertilizer and chemical tanks.

Pressurized anhydrous ammonia tanks are a different application from atmospheric liquid fertilizer tanks, so talk to a LevelCon engineer before planning around them. Our tank level monitoring guide explains how sensors, gateways, and alerts work together.

• Farm diesel tanks: bulk fuel for tractors, combines, sprayers, and trucks.
• Propane tanks: fuel for grain dryers, barn and greenhouse heat, irrigation engines, and standby generators.
• Livestock water tanks: stock tanks in remote pastures and the storage tanks that feed them.
• Irrigation and well water storage: level in holding tanks that supply irrigation or wash water.
• Liquid fertilizer and crop chemical tanks: inventory on bulk storage, with the sensor selected for the specific liquid.

How does propane tank monitoring help farms?

Propane tank monitoring helps farms by sending a low-level alert before a grain dryer, barn heater, or irrigation engine runs out, so the refill is ordered on time instead of after a shutdown.

Grain dryers can burn through a tank quickly at harvest, and an empty tank stops drying while wet grain waits. In poultry and hog barns, heaters keep young animals warm, so a run-out on a cold night puts livestock at risk. A monitor reads the tank's level at set intervals, often from the existing float gauge, so the tank doesn't need to be opened or modified.

Stored readings also build a usage history for every tank, which helps with budgeting and makes a sudden unexplained drop easy to spot. Propane tanks are normally filled to about 80%, so a full tank reads around 80%. If you lease tanks from your supplier, check with them first. Our full propane tank monitoring guide covers farm and commercial uses in detail.

How do you monitor livestock water tanks remotely?

Remote livestock water monitoring puts a level sensor on the stock tank or the storage tank that feeds it and sends a low-level alert when water drops, so a failed well pump, frozen line, or stuck float valve is caught before animals go without.

Stock tanks are usually outdoors, far from power, and spread across pastures that take hours to drive. A solar- or battery-powered monitor handles the power problem, and satellite connectivity covers pastures with no cell signal. Ultrasonic sensors are a common fit for clean livestock water, as our ultrasonic vs. radar guide by application explains.

The trend tells you more than the level alone. A tank that drops quickly points to a leak or a broken float. A tank that stays low and never refills points to a pump, well, or supply line problem.

How does remote monitoring help during planting and harvest?

During planting and harvest, remote monitoring shows how fast each fuel, propane, and fertilizer tank is being drawn down, so deliveries are scheduled ahead of demand instead of after a tank runs dry.

Usage can jump several times over in a few weeks, which is when fixed-schedule checks are most likely to miss a nearly empty tank. Consumption trends set realistic reorder points for each tank, and alerts go to the people who need them by SMS, email, or the LevelCon app. Role-based access lets you give a farm manager or crew lead access to only the sites they handle.

Fewer gauge-reading trips is the other payoff, especially on properties where tanks sit miles apart. We break down that math in how remote monitoring reduces truck rolls.

What should you look for in a farm tank monitor?

Look for a monitor that fits your existing tanks without modification, runs on solar or battery power, reaches your fields over cellular or satellite, and shows every tank type in one app.

• Coverage: LTE-M or NB-IoT cellular near the farmstead, with satellite on XSync units for remote fields and pastures.
• Power: solar or long-life battery, so no wiring is needed at the tank.
• Installation: a pre-integrated monitor that installs in a single mounting step.
• Alerts: low-level, high-level, and rate-of-change alerts you can set for each tank.
• Sensor fit: the right sensor for the liquid, since diesel, propane, water, and fertilizer don't all measure the same way.
• One dashboard: propane, fuel, water, and chemical tanks together in one web portal and mobile app.

Which LevelCon products fit farms and ranches?

Most farms start with LevelCon stationary tank monitors on fuel and propane tanks, then add an F200 gateway and sensors for water and fertilizer tanks.

LevelCon brings 40+ years in industrial monitoring and more than 50,000 monitored assets across 150+ customers.

• Stationary tank monitors: level sensor and gateway pre-integrated in one enclosure, with a wireless version for tanks where running power or wiring isn't practical.
• F200: 4G LTE gateway with 4–20 mA, 0–5 V, RS-485, and RS-232 inputs, 5+ years of unattended operation at two reports per day, and motion-activated multi-GNSS for fuel tanks that move between fields.
• XSync R: 60 GHz radar and cellular in one solar-powered unit for tanks where nothing should touch the liquid, at ranges up to 5 meters.
• Sensors: radar, ultrasonic, and submersible options matched to fuel, water, and fertilizer.
• Automation: start and stop pumps automatically based on tank level thresholds to prevent overflow or dry-run conditions on water storage.