When Guillermo DiGiuseppe, horticultural manager at the New Zealand berry farm Season Farms, observed that his production was being negatively affected by high summer temperatures, he investigated.
He found areas in the greenhouse where plant leaf temperatures reached as high as 35 degrees Celsius. He knew this indicated plant stress, even without the plants showing visible signs like wilting. Although the farm measured air temperature in the greenhouse, this was not an accurate representation of plant temperature: in some cases he found the differences between air and plant temperature as much as 7 degrees Celsius.
This story was shared in a recent webinar: 4 Common Grower Problems Solved with Digital Agronomy, organized by WayBeyond.
As a response, Season Farms installed WayBeyond’s digital agronomy solution: FarmRoad. FarmRoad provided continuous plant and temperature data visualized as graphs and heat maps. This way Guillermo could see the hottest areas of the greenhouse and could take steps to address the issue.
Whitewashing was the normal practice at the farm to combat high temperatures and regulate light but previously it had been actioned on a set date at the beginning of cultivation. With digital agronomy Guillermo was able to prove the need for whitewashing sooner due to the impact on crop production. Consequently, the whitewash was applied promptly.
Analysing the data post-application, Guillermo concluded that whitewashing successfully reduced plant stress. Plant temperature remained below 30°C during the hottest summer periods, and resulted in a 20-30% increase in production and improved overall fruit size. Additionally, the reduction in radiation light, as shown by the inside and outside radiation readings, validated the value of whitewashing and the farm’s investment decision.
“The information from the solution is so important, wanting to have it available is really a no-brainer,” said Guillermo.
Avoiding climate conditions, decrease risk of disease outbreaks
“Outbreaks are just a reality of growing in a greenhouse. Growers accept that these challenges are expected at some point. The first line of defense is avoiding conditions that lead to outbreaks, like good sanitation practices, robust cultural practices, spraying or treatment, but should something unforeseen occur, growers need to take quick action to minimize the impact and spread of the disease,” said Lee Kirsopp, Product Manager with WayBeyond, who led this section of the webinar.
He explained their digital agronomy solution for protected cropping growers, FarmRoad, comprises of a sensor network, a data capture app and an online platform. The sensor network continuously captures multiple data types, growers use the app to digitally record data such as harvest yield, plant measurements and scouting observations, and this is fed to the online platform for visualisation and analysis.
In this section Lee gave an example of FarmRoad being harnessed for disease prevention.
A spore-based disease like botrytis requires high humidity, over 90% RH, for an extended period, coupled with moderate temperatures of between 13 to 23 degrees to thrive. Once these conditions are met, and the spores germinate, it takes about two weeks for it to become visible on the plants.
In the example the grower in question was experiencing a loss in crops due to botrytis. The situation reached a critical point when crop loss reached a staggering 40%, around 150 thousand USD in loss. Leveraging the digital agronomy solution they were able to get clear on what was contributing to their ongoing losses.
Using the humidity and air temperature data, they could see where the problem was. As it turned out, there were two moments where humidity spiked, while temperature remained between 13 and 23 degrees. Those moments occurred two weeks before the scouter spotted the botrytis. Armed with this new information, they made adjustments to the growing environment and crop practices.
Additionally, alert notifications were configured to trigger when climate conditions became conducive to the disease, providing growers with early warnings and an opportunity to take corrective action, making them proactive instead of reactive.
Deployment of resources at the right time
One of the main drivers of success at a farm is deploying the right resources to the right location at the right time – either as a pre-emptive measure or in response to an event. Farm managers are already heavily involved in this process but attempting to manage the resources of multiple farms in multiple locations is an ongoing challenge.
A good example of this is WayBeyond’s work with African Blue, Morocco’s largest blueberry producer. They grow their fruits in polytunnel houses in soil and substrates, and they use basic climate control measures for heating and venting.
One of the needs of Horticultural Manager Aziz El Kahlaoui was accurate and remote measurement of climate to anticipate risk of frost and disease. During winter frosts are common in Morocco, but the only way to determine whether the crops are at risk is to travel out to the farms and take readings on site. In African Blue’s case there are large distances between some of the farms, sometimes as much as a 45-minute drive on unpaved roads. Making the whole process time and labour-intensive.
So, using FarmRoad African Blue set up alerts to trigger when temperatures dropped to frost-risk levels. With these notifications they could ensure heating and ventilation was activated in time to protect the crops without having to travel to and from the farm. This saved many man-hours, unnecessary travel time, and fuel consumption.
“Before, if frost was forecast, my team would have to travel to the farms to manually check the temperature before deciding on a course of action. But now, using alerts via WhatsApp, we can more successfully manage our response to potential frost and disease risk,” says Aziz.
Lack of visibility of farm performance over multiple sites
The last example was also from African Blue. Boasting nine farms that are spread across the country, with 350 hectares in the north, and around 120 in the south, their operations size led to a lack of visibility of the farming climates as a whole.
“We needed a crop-monitoring and management solution that could bring all the data types from our farms together to be visualized at the same time,” said Aziz.
By harnessing digital agronomy they are now able to continuously monitor multiple farms, visualize climate data across these sites, And provide that data to farm managers and others, giving African Blue a better overall picture of the productivity of farm operations.
“Today, I can see an overview of the farms for myself instead of making multiple phone calls to multiple farm managers to ask for updates. I’m getting faster, more accurate information, and that is saving me time,” Aziz concluded.
Click here to watch the full webinar
For more information:
WayBeyond Ltd.
Candida Office Park, 61 Constellation Drive
Auckland 0632, New Zealand
Tel.: +64 9 415 2380
Email: [email protected]
https://www.waybeyond.io/