Applied weather information for farmers and growers

WeatherOnline has recently developed an online agricultural weather service, as part of the WeatherOnline’s general weather web site (http://www.weatheronline.co.uk). The service contains weather parameters that are of importance to farmers and growers, such as: the wind a spray boom height, leaf wetness duration and, crop and soil temperature. These parameters can be accessed per crop and for three different crop stages. Beside general agricultural weather, information is displayed on crop diseases, crop protection and crop evaporation.

Crops get infected by fungi, bacteria and viruses causing diseases. Some are only of minor importance some are lethal to crops. Especially the fungal diseases are weather related where crop temperature is the most important factor. Other important parameters are rain, dew (together causing leaf wetness), RH, radiation and wind. For major crop diseases the importance of these parameters are combined, resulting in a forecast for a particular disease in a particular crop for the next 5 days. The output on the web site is a disease infection risk ranging from no/low risk to extreme risk.

Weather conditions before, during and after application of agrochemicals are very important for the effectiveness. Knowledge of e.g. the behaviour of pesticides in relation to weather conditions can be an aid to achieve a better effect and even serve as a tool to reduce the dose in well defined applications. Formulation type and dynamic build-up of the wax- layer at the upper side of the leaf are important for sticking and the speed and way of uptake of active ingredients in the leaves. The thickness of these wax-layers is influenced by meteorological parameters. For farmers and growers it is difficult to combine all the important processes. The output on the web site is the spray effect ranging from no/low effect to optimal effect.

In our web application, the knowledge of the relations between crop protecting agents and meteorological conditions are combined. The system calculates (hourly-based) the physical behaviour of the agrochemicals in different stages of the process (e.g. leaf wetness, drying/uptake of the formulation, sticking, run off). With the help of this decision support system the farmer can choose the best moment of the day to apply a product with the optimum dose. Weather conditions before, during and after crop protection applications can affect the effectiveness and can be the cause of much variation. Application of plant protection products at the moment of highest effectiveness is important to reduce its environmental impact and to guard against failure of control.


All is available in English, French, Spanish, Polish and Greek. For more information please click here, or contact: sales@weatheronline.co.uk

.