Assessing a crop's canopy Green Area Index (GAI) precisely can be tricky, but it is an important indicator for accurate fertiliser and agrochemical application timings. In collaboration with ADAS, BASF developed a new enhanced Canopy Assessment Tool (CAT) for winter cereals, allowing an accurate and consistent assessment of crop nitrogen content (in kg N/ha) and crop lodging risk from a digital photograph and will be launching it at the Precision Farming Event at The East of England Showground at Peterborough on Wednesday 7th March 2012.

BASF’s Sarah Mountford-Smith says that before the event, she would like to invite growers and advisors to complete a short questionnaire online at www.agricentre.basf.co.uk on the use of precision farming and also the use of mobile phone and on-line tools. By completing the questionnaire you can have a chance to win an iPhone 4S, worth £500, in a prize draw, she says.

“The BASF Canopy Assessment Tool is a revolutionary tool to help farmers and advisors protect their yield by accurately assessing nitrogen requirements and crop lodging risk. It is an easy to use practical aid, calculating crop nitrogen requirements accurately and allowing appropriate fertiliser and PGR programmes to be devised. It helps to justify inputs and is very much a part of an on-going ICM approach. Having the CAT on the mobile interface makes the tool faster and more flexible,” says Sarah Mountford-Smith.

In its first year there were more than 4000 uses of the CAT online by growers and advisors, and more than 400 downloaded the CAT App.  “Hopefully more growers and advisors will have a go with the CAT this spring. The new improved CAT App is being demonstrated at the Precision Farming event on the BASF stand at Stand Number 28, where you can download it free of charge on the day of the event,” says Sarah.

She reports that since its launch last year the Canopy Assessment Tool (CAT) has been considerably enhanced, making it even more valuable to growers and agronomists. “The CAT is available as an iPhone App or as a web-based online tool at www.agricentre.basf.co.uk. A Blackberry version will be available very soon.”

Sarah explains that the CAT was originally developed for use in winter wheat and this has been expanded to include winter barley.  “We have also improved its user-friendliness through more appropriate default settings and a link to GrowHow’s N-Min Service. The key area of enhancement is its use not only for assessing lodging risk and hence PGR timings, but also for accurately assessing crop nitrogen content. This means that it has two key timings and two key functions – the first is when the CAT is calibrated to be used from Growth Stage (GS) 12 onwards to calculate crop nitrogen content and the second is when it is used from GS 30 onwards to calculate lodging risk and PGR needs.”

Dr Sarah Clarke, Research Scientist at ADAS will talk through the practical benefits of this tool at a seminar at 11.30am at the Precision Farming Event.

The CAT is available as an App for iPhone available from the App Store on iTunes. More info on this is available from the BASF website. www.agricentre.basf.co.uk.

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