Tri-State Neighbor: South Dakota Farm Newspaper

A Chatham, Ontario, company has developed a forecasting tool called BeetCast.

Weather INnovations Incorporated developed BeetCast to help the sugarbeet growers of Michigan Sugar Company decide when to apply fungicides.

The tool is important because cercospora leaf spot is a huge threat to the sugarbeet industry. The disease can reduce sugar content and tonnage.

Growers may have to spray fungicides three or more times to control the fungi, but cercospora can become resistant to a class of fungicides fairly quickly.

Sugarbeet growers also want to maximize their economic and labor investment, and BeetCast helps them do that.

Since 2002, growers, processors and industry representatives have relied on this weather-based fungicide spray program.

According to Michigan Sugar Company's Web site, BeetCast has “proven extremely valuable in providing accurate timing of fungicides to control Cercospora leaf spot,” adding that “significant improvement in sugarbeet yields and sugar content have been gained since the adoption of BeetCast.”

Recently, Ron Pitblado, research manager for Weather Innovations, was in Minnesota attending the U.S. Sugarbeet Industry tour.

Pitblado said that as Internet, computer and communication technology advances, customers are asking Weather Innovations to provide them with a variety of forecasts in addition to BeetCast.

The company now offers forecasts for spraying to control the diseases or insects of tomatoes, wheat, potatoes and cucumbers. They have also completed forecasts to predict West Nile virus mosquito populations.

Weather Innovations offers forecasts on the best time to irrigate to maximize crop productivity. They also provide crop insurance companies in Canada with reference quality control information.

Because Weather Innovations is a private company, the advisory service is mostly purchased by cooperatives although individuals sometimes purchase services.

For Michigan Sugar Company, Weather Innovations installed approximately 50 weather stations in the sugarbeet growing region. Sugarbeets are raised in 21 counties in east-central Michigan and one county in Ontario. About 1,250 producers are part of the Michigan Sugar Company cooperative.

Pitblado developed the advisory system that uses air temperature and leaf wetness to help growers decide when to apply fungicides to control cercospora.

To provide the information, Weather Innovations developed a cylindrical sensor to measure leaf wetness.

That information, along with air temperature, is recorded and sent via Internet to Weather Innovation headquarters.

“We operate on a turn-key basis,” said Ian Nichols, Weather Innovations business manager. “We try to manage the information that goes into the model - both in terms of the sensors that are used and the process to collect it.

“We do the fieldwork to maintain the stations, so we know that we have high quality of data, and run it through models that, for the most part, we built in-house,” he said.

BeetCast rates each day on a scale of zero to four.

A value of four indicates weather conditions are very favorable for the disease. A value of zero means the number of hours the leaves were wet was low or the temperature was too cool for cercospora to grow.

Growers then customize their spray program for their fields. Daily disease severity values are tallied until a threshold is reached, indicating a spray application is appropriate.

The counter is then zeroed out, and additional spraying is based on the next interval of cumulative daily disease severity values.

Testing by Michigan Sugar Company, along with pathologists from Michigan State University, have verified the accuracy of BeetCast.

Weather Innovations also developed the “output” so growers can quickly get onto the Internet and get the information they need to make good decisions.

“We want our advisory programs to be straightforward, but there are a lot of steps that go in the back-end to make sure it comes out just right,” Nichols said.

Sugarbeet growers are reminded to use a number of factors when deciding on a fungicide program.

These include variety resistance to cercospora, disease pressure based on crop rotation or proximity to other sugarbeets, choice of fungicide, spray application technique, level of disease control desired and weather conditions.

Pitblado said that growers develop a working knowledge of the program over time.

Some growers use the model to feel comfortable waiting a few extra days to spray. They also use BeetCast as important feedback for improving their farming practices.

“The first time their gut feel and the model disagree, there's an opportunity to explore and learn something,” Pitblado said. “The information is available for people to make use of, and people will make use of it in many ways.”

The interest in using forecasting models to make farming decisions has increased as prices for commodities have increased, and as technology has become less expensive and more advanced.

With higher prices, producers from around the world have shown more interest in growing crops better.

One of Weather Innovations' customers is located in Europe. Wheat growers there can use a calculator-program to determine the best time to spray fungicides based on variety, tillage and previous crops.

Nichols says many programs will continue to be developed - from global, to country, to broad regional programs, to field specific calculators.

“It's interesting,” he said. “When you're working with a group on one product, or a particular model, there are just a host of other things that can be done at the same time.”

For more information, visit the Web site at www.weatherinnova tions.com.