Pessl Digital Plant Protection receives EIMA Mention Award

With Digital Plant Protection with iMETOS, Pessl Instruments aims to provide more precise actionable data to growers. The goal is to select the best timing for spray applications, to optimis e the interval between applications that will ensure both disease and pest control as well as reduce the use of chemicals, and to evaluate the success of spraying.

Three connected units

Pessl describes Digital Plant Protection as a holistic approach to field management that helps farmers achieve bigger and better-quality yield at a lower cost. It combines three connected units: a physical weather station (μMETOS CLIMA), a GPS tracker (iMETOS Tracker) and a cloud platform (FieldClimate) to offer actionable tools and a direct benefit to growers.

Site-specific IoT weather stations are used to monitor the actual weather conditions in near real- time (rainfall, RH, temperature, wind, Delta T and more). The data is also used for the calculation of numerous disease models for more than 50 crops and the calculation of Growing Degree Days which adds to the understanding of the synchrony of the crop to the disease risk.

Plant Protection Work Planning Tool

Furthermore, site-specific, field-level weather forecast is corrected with real-time local measurements on an hourly basis, which builds a Plant Protection Work Planning Tool that is to help growers plan the work week better and optimise the operations for each field.

Finally, the IoT trackers evaluate the quality of work (speed and coverage) which also provides a time stamped record of field spraying in relation to the spray conditions. All the data and actionable tools are presented on a cloud platform.

According to Pessl Instruments, with precision spray applications, yield and quality loss can be minimised by 5 to 10 bu/acre because of better timed and increased coverage of actual sprays.