Satellite monitoring helps Belgian spud growers predict their yields
BY LEO THOLHUIJSEN, DUTCH CORRESPONDENT
T
he first growing season in which the novel satellite monitoring programme watchITgrow was widely available to Belgian potato growers is
coming to an end. Tentative conclusions about the concept’s use can now be drawn. The tool determines the vegetation index
of registered potato fields once every five days, based on satellite images. This index shows what fields look like at any given time.
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Yield forecasts The programme can then forecast yield using crop growth models on a national, provincial, municipal and field level. The model combines different types of data such as satellite images, weather and soil data. Therefore, the more fields that are registered, the more reliable the yield forecasts are. Available since the start of this year’s season, individual growers were able to create an account on
www.watchitgrow.be (for free this year) and could either register their own potato fields or just keep track of other farmers’ data.
However, by adding more of their own
data about fertilisation, crop protection and irrigation, growers were taking their first steps towards precision farming, by making use of a decision support tool.
The beauty of the system Basically, growers could either use it extensively or take a more passive approach. This choice makes it very approachable and I have become more convinced that concepts need to have a low threshold and offer direct results in order to ensure the successful wide introduction of
SA farmer sees precision farming become the norm
BY ARTHUR GRAY, SOUTH AFRICA CORRESPONDENT
O
ne of the first adopters of precision farming in South Africa recently explained to me how technology first seen on his farm more than 20
years ago has become the norm. Kosie Loubser is the third generation of his
family to farm Altona in the Koeberg district of the western Cape, about 30km (19 miles) north of Cape Town. He grows about 1,600ha (3,960 acres) of wheat, in a rotation with canola and lupins. He told me his first experience of
precision agriculture was in 1995, when the University of Cape Town experimented with yield monitors on the farm’s combines. He remembers the cab of the combine being just a tangle of wires and meters.
precision farming techniques. WatchITgrow meets those conditions: just
signing up is enough for the grower to follow the yield forecast of his own crops and those of all registered fields in Belgium. This year, 6,000ha were registered, divided over the most important potato-growing areas in the country. Right now, the tool paints a picture of the
Belgian potato yield and it matches other similar forecasts. This winter will show how the tool can help
potato growers take their first steps on the slippery, but promising path of smart farming.
Financially feasible Mr Loubser said at that time it appeared the systems that became known as “precision farming” would never be financially feasible. Altona Farm has mainly John Deere
tractors and equipment and was an early customer for John Deere Greenstar guidance systems and Agricultural Management Solutions (AMS), providing the business with the impetus for change. He says it seems incredible that something
looking so advanced then is now quite commonplace and he believes it would now be impossible to have a viable farming operation without the help of all the systems he now employs.
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 9 November 2017
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