How AGRIVI Helps Farmers in Field Scouting?

Field scouting, field observation, or inspection is one of the most important activities during the season from the agronomic point of view. During the field scouting, farmers observe overall crop and field conditions to see are there any signs of pest infestation or any other stress which can be related to lack of water, nutrient deficiency, or some unfavorable weather conditions. Some farmers perform field scouting to detect crop maturity and plan the optimal time of harvest as well.  

Research shows that each year crop yield loss is equal to 20-40% due to various insect pests and diseases. Regular field inspection will lower the possibility of yield loss and help in determining crop maturity. Besides the aforementioned, field inspection is also a mandatory practice in the times when farmers need to lower their environmental footprint and practice reactive instead of preventative spraying. To showcase that they produce sustainably and provide overall production traceability, farmers need to justify every use of pesticides. For this reason, they need to perform a field inspection to provide evidence that there was the actual reason for performing spraying. 

5 Ways How AGRIVI Facilitates Scouting Management 

     1.Risk Identification and Scouting Locations 

Instead of wasting their valuable time and resources for performing random field inspections, farmers can use AGRIVI to decide when it’s important to perform scouting and provide them remotely scouting locations. Based on accurate pest and disease alarms and satellite imagery, AGRIVI reveals problematic field areas and remotely detects scouting locations. That way, farmers have safe support in deciding whether they need to go for field observation and which precise parts in the field they need to observe.

     2.Evidence Collection 

Once pest alerts and satellite imagery show that there are possible threats on a specific field, farmers know which area in the field they need to inspect. In this case, AGRIVI supports farmers in taking the observation notes in terms of noticed pests or some other damage caused by unfavorable weather. By doing so they can precisely mark the location of the field where they noticed the damage and provide a photo as evidence of performed scouting. Since AGRIVI is available as a mobile application for both Android and iOS, farmers can track all these observations with their mobile phones and even in the case when they don’t have an internet connection. This is possible because the mobile application supports offline mode as well.

     3. Justifying the Spraying  

Nowadays, more and more farmers are turning to reactive instead of preventative spraying. Some farmers do it to produce the crops more sustainably, while others perform reactive spraying to satisfy the strict food safety production standards. Regardless of the reason, AGRIVI enables farmers to record every pesticide usage which is related to specific field scouting.  

     4.Providing Reports 

Farmers usually need to create reports for the purpose of National regulatory compliance or to provide complete production traceability to their customers and companies with which they collaborate. For this purpose, AGRIVI simplifies farmer’s life by enabling a scouting report per each crop and season in just a few clicks. Besides the scouting report, AGRIVI provides more than 30 other reports which farmers can use for meeting national regulatory compliance or providing their production traceability. 

     5. Planning Optimal Time for Harvesting 

Scouting is not only a risk management practice. It can also be a powerful ally in planning other activities, such as when it’s the optimal time for harvesting. Since harvesting at the optimal time plays a significant role in preserving the crop quantity, it’s essential to plan the optimal harvesting time. On the other hand, harvesting can require additional organization and preparation of workforce and machinery, so farmers need to track changes in crop maturity regularly to be ready for harvesting. In this manner, AGRIVI provides satellite imagery which can be crucial in determining the crop maturity and planning optimal harvest time. 

If you are lost in your paper notes and need additional assistance in managing your field scouting operations, contact us to get more information on how AGRIVI can facilitate your farm management.