Crop protection specialist Agrovista UK Ltd has developed a web-based disease and pest modelling system for top-fruit growers.
Paul Bennett, fruit agronomist at Agrovista, said: “This is the most advanced pest and disease modelling service available. It covers primary and secondary scab and codling moth, using Rimpro software to process weather data from sites around the UK.
“The system is updated continuously 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is available to subscribers on a password-protected area via the Agrovista website.”
The graphs available - example below - provide information in a graphical form, covering ascospore release, primary and secondary season infection periods, codling moth flight activity, egg deposition and larval emergence, as well as weather data from all the individual sites.
The new service, Growers Choice Interactive, also includes text alerts to a nominated mobile phone to highlight major events during the production season, so that growers can make up-to-the-minute decisions about spraying. The spread of weather stations feeding the system gives coverage of all the relevant top-fruit areas in Kent, East Anglia and the West Midlands.
“This is a fantastic service that has now opened for UK fruit growers, and the ability to manage inputs to this degree, with such accuracy, has never been done before,” said Bennett. “This technology does not come cheap, and the investment has been great - in time as well as financial - and to be able to launch this service to growers will help in the challenge to provide top-quality fruit, with reduced residue risk, to the marketplace.”
Subscribers to Growers Choice Interactive have access to information from all weather stations on the system, not just the one nearest to their farm, so they can look at the risk across the UK and predict when weather patterns will affect their area.
“This service will allow growers to target applications of plant protection products accurately, and eliminate unnecessary applications of crop protection products,” said Bennett. “Interpretation from the system will allow the dose and timing to be adjusted according to risk to the crop at any moment in time. This will give growers the opportunity to reduce applications of product during a season, and reduce input costs, while minimising residues without compromising fruit quality and, in many cases, improving quality.”
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