New tool aims to help growers better manage risks

The Vegetables New Zealand (VNZ) Weather & Disease Portal, launched in April, provides weather forecasts and easy-tounderstand information about disease risk. It does this by combining data from a nationwide network of weather stations with disease models from leading New Zealand researchers. The tool is available to all commercial vegetable growers via the ‘Weather & Disease’ button on the VNZ website, www.freshvegetables.co.nz.

“We are thrilled to be making this tool available to our growers. Weather plays a crucial role in the production of vegetables and having readily available, accurate information helps our growers make informed decisions around crop activities,” VNZ research, development & extension manager Daniel Sutton says.

One of the many growers who will benefit is Kirit Makan, who grows onions, potatoes, leeks, pumpkins and butternuts on his 50-hectare property in Pukekohe.

“I’ll be looking at it each week to get good weather information. It’s another great tool that will help us make good decisions around the weather and the disease pressures we are likely to face at different times of year,” Makan says.

The portal was developed in collaboration with kiwi agri-tech experts HortPlus – a company with 25 years of experience developing weather and disease platforms for agriculture.

“We’re excited at the potential the weather and disease portal offers and can’t wait to see the impact it has across New Zealand’s vegetable industry,” says HortPlus director Mike Barley.

The platform will be launching initially with weather and forecasting tools as the focus.

“However, there is potential to add more pest and disease models to further support the kinds of data-driven decisions that can reduce crop losses, increase productivity and drive positive sustainability outcomes through more targeted agrichemical use,” Barley adds.

He says Vegetables New Zealand serviced a diverse industry representing growers of more than 55 different crop types, so the potential for future crop-specific additions to the portal was “immense”.

The Metwatch Platform that powers the VNZ Weather & Disease Portal is also used by a range of other sectors, from kiwifruit, summer fruit, to apples and arable crops, with different tools and crop-specific pest and disease models for each.

Barley believes there are opportunities to enable integration between the Vegetables New Zealand portal and the weather and disease portals used by other industries such as Onions New Zealand and Foundation for Arable Research, recognising that many vegetable growers also grow other crops.

In addition to growers, the portals are also used by researchers and agronomists for more advanced modelling and data insight.