Potato farming: Case Study
The weather plays a crucial part in potato farming. Sencrop indicators allow farmers to apply treatments to their potato fields with better precision.
Crop tour management
Risk and disease prevention
Input cost savings
RISKS
Detecting the risks of potato-related diseases
Sencrop provides precision agricultural weather data for potato farming. This helps to prevent diseases and to optimise decisions as to treatment windows.
Potato Blight
This fungal disease can wreak havoc in potato fields. Sencrop provides decision support tools that can help farmers identify and prevent the risk of potato blight.
Pests
Colorado potato beetles, aphids and black slugs are all particularly fond of potatoes. It is essential to treat crops against these pests at the right time.
Early Blight
Alternating periods of dry and humid weather as well as various stressors in crop production (drought, nutritional deficiency, etc.) stimulate the development of ‘Alternaria spots’.
Dartrose
Also called black dot, this fungal disease affects both tubers and aerial parts of the plant. High temperatures provide ideal conditions for its development.
Rhizoctonia
Rhizoctonia Solani inflicts various types of damage to potato crops at several stages in their growing cycle.
Weeds
These plants compete with potatoes and reduce both yield and quality. It is crucial to act at the right time.
CASE STUDY
Potato blight: a major potato disease
As potato farming is subject to several risks, Sencrop provides a solution to stay updated on weather conditions through a convenient application. This system helps you detect risk factors and anticipate treatment windows.
What is potato blight?
Brought on by the Phytophthora infestans fungus, potato blight is a disease that can cause considerable damage to crops.
Main symptoms: crops infected with potato blight develop discoloured, oily spots on the top side of the leaves. On the petioles, stems and tubers, the spots are brown.
Yield loss can represent as much as 80% of the harvest, or even 100% in the most serious cases. Alternating periods of high humidity and warmth support the development of the disease.
How to detect the onset of Potato Blight?
Sencrop’s connected rain gauges detect when the weather conditions are ideal for the development of potato blight in plots where potatoes are grown.
The disease thrives in alternating periods of heavy rainfall (when humidity is 90% or above) and warmth (with average temperatures above 11 °C or 52 °F).
The presence of water on the leaves initiates the germination process of potato blight oospores, which kickstarts the infection. To prevent that risk, you can access precise humidity, intermittent and average temperature, and rainfall data.
Creating a Potato Blight Alert
The best way to prevent the onset of potato blight is to apply agrochemical treatment whenever the conditions are ideal.
Sencrop’s application can be programmed to alert you based on a combination of weather factors to help you act at the right time. For instance, you can receive a notification when the temperature goes above 12° C (53.5 °F) and humidity levels go above 80%.
Decision Support Tools (DST)
Several decision support tools (DST) have partnered with Sencrop to help with potato cultivation. Use the application to combine your data with our partner equipment’s:
30,55
%
of Sencrop's potato growers
have already connected their Sencrop app to a DST.
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US
Really easy to use, relevant information and comparable. It's really clever!
I genuinely enjoy the accessibility and how easy it is to look at the data. We’ve got 2 rain gauges and the difference in those two can be substantially different. I'm really surprised and I have never appreciated local variability!
Paul Arden
North Lincolnshire
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US
The most useful feature is the possibility to set up a perimeter,
so the app will tell you the temperature range between dates and the rainfall. It gives me a much better understanding of our local weather, our rainfall and the direction in which the temperature is going when I make drilling decisions.
Andrew Bott
North of London, near Stevenage
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US
There are often huge disparity about the rain in very short distances.
We can have 5mm of rain and 3-4 miles down the road, they may have nothing, so I like the facility to look all the weather stations in the locality.
Ben Cannon
Farmer - East Hertfordshire
Local weather
14 days to try the application for free
Sencrop has the biggest network of ag-stations in UK : find the nearest station or network from you. Find out more about it now! The Sencrop network covers the entire European territory.
Other Case Studies
Potato cultivation is not the only one to be affected by diseases. Find out about other applications of Sencrop indicators through the following case studies:
Viticulture
Find out how to protect your vines from diseases (mildew, powdery mildew, etc.) and frost, which can affect quality and yield.
Grain Crops
Find out how to monitor your grain crops efficiently to ensure they develop properly and maximise their yield.
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