Chile's winter months are usually very cold and Chilean farmers are worried about a possible frost as the country's streets are frozen and Chile's central area is facing temperatures of nearly -5ºC. Even though many producers have systems or techniques to mitigate the effects of low temperatures on crops, there is a high-risk that part or all of the crop can be lost when there's inclement weather.
There are up to 19 frosts a year in the central zone of the country. These events vary from year to year due to the influence of different factors and can be more extreme and threatening in some periods. For example, between 2007 and 2013 the agricultural sector had losses that fluctuated between 600 million dollars and 1 billion dollars because of this weather phenomenon.
To avoid worst-case scenarios, Agtech Instacrops has just launched Instafrost, a targeted solution capable of predicting frost up to 12 hours in advance and with more than 90% accuracy. "Instafrost is a frost alert service that predicts the ambient temperature and the occurrence of frost from the agroclimatic records captured by our InstaWeather Standard/ Plus and InstaSoil Temp/ Plus stations," stated Mario Bustamante, the CEO of Instacrops.
The Instacrops platform sends automatic SMS and email notifications according to the temperature range forecast, even estimating the duration of the frost. "This highly accurate information will allow farmers to make timely decisions to avoid losses. They will always be one step ahead of the weather to ensure a successful harvest," Bustamante added.
Increasing precision
The alert service is complemented by InstaSoil, a soil moisture monitoring technology, and InstaWeather, a meteorological station that gathers the essential agro-climatological parameters to monitor field temperatures. With the data from these solutions, InstaFrost can detect elements that translate into highly accurate frost alerts.
"One of our goals has always been predicting frosts. That's why we have raised the standards of our technology to deliver an increasingly precise product that is an infallible ally for farmers, who can have access to all the information they need on their cell phones, no matter where they are, and hours in advance so they can make strategic decisions in the event of risky low temperatures,” Mario Bustamante added.
For more information:
Instacrops
[email protected]
www.instacrops.com