Data-rich information driving increased visibility for ideal spraying conditions
Adopting technology on-farm is helping the agriculture industry combat the thousands of pests that attack crops in-season while creating safer spraying for farmers though identifying ideal spraying conditions.
Every season brings its own challenges when it comes to crop farming. In each growing season, farmers face the challenge of controlling thousands of pests, such as weeds, harmful insects, and plant diseases, that can afflict crops.
According to UN Food and Agriculture organization IPPC Secretariat, between 20% to 40% of global crop is lost due to plant pests and diseases.
This is why it is imperative that the type of pesticide used, measured and calculated are correct, including the amount and the way these chemicals are released onto crops. Assessing environmental conditions prior to spraying is also a key element for crop farming – it can mean the difference between whether there is spray drift, which can detrimentally affect surrounding areas and nearby livestock.
Optimising environmental conditions for safer spraying
While spray equipment technologies make pesticide applications safer and minimise off target movement, understanding the environmental conditions are essential. Considering the spraying conditions, such as wind strength and direction, inversions, as well as the weather patterns, also dictate when you spray. Since this is a regular operation for crop farming in-season, farmers need to be aware of spray drift every time they spray their land – not only for their health but also for the health of surrounding crops (and livestock). But, with weather patterns becoming harder to predict given the current climate, how can one accurately ensure conditions are ideal for spraying? Through adopting the right agriculture technology into farming operations.
Agtech creating a safer environment
The adoption of agtech gives farmers the ability to spray only the necessary amount of pesticides on the pest-afflicted crops (and not just a general amount of chemical over an entire area), and takes into consideration environmental factors that could influence spray drift, ensuring the land, animals and staff are kept safe from harmful chemicals.
IoT solutions, like Farmdeck’s Spraying Conditions, can help farmers understand the weather conditions better by giving an overall spraying status and recommendations based on four weather factors: Windspeed, likelihood of rain, Delta-T, and thermal inversion. Through the Farmdeck app, farmers receive a status update of these four factors, indicating whether they are unsuitable conditions or preferred. If all statuses reflect preferred, this then becomes the perfect time to spray. Farmers are now able to get a more accurate gauge on the weather conditions on their property, giving them peace of mind.
The weather data that the Farmdeck app uses comes from either the closest Weather Services to the farm (no sensor is required) or a weather station at the specific farm for better precision (a sensor is required for this option). It is important to note that data coming from Weather Services are an indication only, as the conditions on a specific farm might differ. (Thermal inversion can only be measured if two temperature sensors have been installed on a farm.)
Farmdeck’s Spraying Conditions also gives farmers the ability to keep a record of spraying events, including chemicals used, type of crops that were sprayed, nozzle name, type speed and angle, to name but a few. The great thing about this is that these records can help track the effectiveness of pesticides, and reduce health, trade, and environmental impacts by providing vital information if an incident occurs. This digital record also comes in handy and helps farmers meet audit requirements if farmers are chosen to undergo an audit.
Want to know more about our agtech IoT solutions?
New features are constantly being developed, even those that get requested by customers. Our goal is to create a seamless farm management solution, giving you peace of mind, and total oversight of your farm through our app on any device.
Take a look at our Features page to see our range of IoT solutions, as well as what’s coming: Features.