02 March 2023
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Weather stations can be a way to help prevent disease and infestation before they take hold.
ANTICIPATING risks presented from disease and pests is key to providing optimal crop protection and connected weather stations can offer a real solution to this.
The manufacturers of Sencrop, a weather station which connects to a collaborative weather application to help growers detect when crops are at risk, points out that potato production is subject to numerous risks of disease and pests whose development can be responsive to local meteorological factors.
"In order to optimally protect crops, it is necessary to anticipate the risks. This is what allows you to optimise protection as well as the financial and environmental management of treatments," the company states in a recent advisory bulletin.
Weather stations allow growers to follow the weather data of plots to anticipate risk and optimise treatments, enabling growers to monitor agronomic indicators of disease and pest risk directly in the application. Local weather data can be connected to decision support tools (DST).
Decision support tools (DST) are tools developed in the agricultural world which allow the analysis of a situation, the adjustment of interventions or the definition of strategic choices, according to the detected risks. These can be connected to local weather data.
"The first level of use of Sencrop for disease and pest management is based on the use of weather data. Thanks to the weather stations connected directly to your plots, you can monitor rainfall, hygrometry, temperature, etc. This data will allow you to anticipate the risk of pests and diseases in your fields," the bulletin states.
"This weather data will also enable you to identify the best window for carrying out your phytosanitary treatments. Indeed, for a treatment to be effective and to limit the dispersion of the active ingredient, it is necessary to carry out the treatments in optimal conditions of wind, rainfall or temperature for example."
Treatment alerts can then be set up in your application based on your weather data. This allows you to be alerted to conditions that are conducive to disease development or to identify the best time to spray.
While the use of meteorological data makes it possible to assess disease risks and optimise the application of treatments, agronomic indicators of disease risk can be a major help in prevention.
Source: Sencrop
