Article taken from the Westcountry Farmer
The weather forecast is an essential part of daily work planning for farmers and growers. Free forecasts are available but are generally limited in their capabilities and cover more general areas and conditions.
Plantsystems from Agrovista now offer a local weather forecast which is an outstanding product due to its ease of delivery, its accuracy and its cost effectiveness and exactly matches growers needs. The forecast is shown pictorially and also includes radar pictures.
Every day the forecast is delivered via email, very early in the morning. The forecast shows hour by hour through the day the accurate weather conditions for a particular location. As part of the package, a spray planning forecast is included which shows the data in a pictorial format showing the conditions through the day to help growers manage resources and workload on the farm and highlight ideal times of the day to spray.
What do you get?
■ Two-day detailed view, 10-day overview
■ Precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction and evapotranspiration (ET0) all presented in easy to read graphics
■ Spraying conditions forecast
■ Rainfall radar – actual and short term forecast
■ Daily email service, internet browser, or PC software access
As well as providing a highly-accurate weather forecast, local data from a particular crop or geographic area can be added and run through a server running complex disease prediction software.
This service called Plantsystems’ Daily Forecast Xtra combines a farm’s local weather forecast with data from weather stations sited on the farm itself and uses this information to provide pest and disease infection risks for a host of arable, vegetable, fruit and flower crops.
The service covers approximately 50 diseases and five pests on 21 crop species, including early and late potato blight, Botrytis and mildew species in fruit, flowers, vegetables and field crops, as well as pests like codling moth, peach potato aphid and carrot fly.
As algorithms become available, new diseases and pests are being added to the service. The weather stations can be bought, lease or hired from Plantsystems and return their cost many times over in yield and quality by allowing growers to target their inputs accurately and not applying unnecessary product to a crop.
These units can also be used for irrigation monitoring and is the most advanced of its type in the UK and is based on Plantsystems’ solar-powered GSM/GPSlinked soil moisture stations, widely used by leading potato and field vegetable growers.
These stations are fitted with a rain gauge and multi-level soil moisture sensors and deploy in reference crops, providing a continuous record of data. Users will receive an email alert which is triggered when soil water content drops below a planned threshold or when significant irrigation or rainfall is captured.
As well as providing real time information or irrigation need, the system allows growers to monitor irrigation applications as they occur and the Active irrigation schedule provides an estimate of soil moisture status over the next three, five and seven days on a rolling basis via email.
The weather forecast is an essential part of daily work planning for farmers and growers. Free forecasts are available but are generally limited in their capabilities and cover more general areas and conditions.
Plantsystems from Agrovista now offer a local weather forecast which is an outstanding product due to its ease of delivery, its accuracy and its cost effectiveness and exactly matches growers needs. The forecast is shown pictorially and also includes radar pictures.
Every day the forecast is delivered via email, very early in the morning. The forecast shows hour by hour through the day the accurate weather conditions for a particular location. As part of the package, a spray planning forecast is included which shows the data in a pictorial format showing the conditions through the day to help growers manage resources and workload on the farm and highlight ideal times of the day to spray.
What do you get?
■ Two-day detailed view, 10-day overview
■ Precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction and evapotranspiration (ET0) all presented in easy to read graphics
■ Spraying conditions forecast
■ Rainfall radar – actual and short term forecast
■ Daily email service, internet browser, or PC software access
As well as providing a highly-accurate weather forecast, local data from a particular crop or geographic area can be added and run through a server running complex disease prediction software.
This service called Plantsystems’ Daily Forecast Xtra combines a farm’s local weather forecast with data from weather stations sited on the farm itself and uses this information to provide pest and disease infection risks for a host of arable, vegetable, fruit and flower crops.
The service covers approximately 50 diseases and five pests on 21 crop species, including early and late potato blight, Botrytis and mildew species in fruit, flowers, vegetables and field crops, as well as pests like codling moth, peach potato aphid and carrot fly.
As algorithms become available, new diseases and pests are being added to the service. The weather stations can be bought, lease or hired from Plantsystems and return their cost many times over in yield and quality by allowing growers to target their inputs accurately and not applying unnecessary product to a crop.
These units can also be used for irrigation monitoring and is the most advanced of its type in the UK and is based on Plantsystems’ solar-powered GSM/GPSlinked soil moisture stations, widely used by leading potato and field vegetable growers.
These stations are fitted with a rain gauge and multi-level soil moisture sensors and deploy in reference crops, providing a continuous record of data. Users will receive an email alert which is triggered when soil water content drops below a planned threshold or when significant irrigation or rainfall is captured.
As well as providing real time information or irrigation need, the system allows growers to monitor irrigation applications as they occur and the Active irrigation schedule provides an estimate of soil moisture status over the next three, five and seven days on a rolling basis via email.