Fruit grower Dagobert Widemann provides insights into how the Farmable app supports him in his day-to-day orchard activities.
As the new fruit growing season comes to an end in Europe, farmers are getting ready for their winter activities. Since January, we have talked to dozens of growers who scouted their fields for dead trees, completed pruning and root cutting activities, or have documented their crop treatments and recorded their harvest.
One of these growers is Dagobert Widemann, a pome and stone fruit grower from Lake Constance in Germany. In 2020, Dagobert mapped his apple, apricot and peach fields in the Farmable app for the first time. Since then, he has been using the app on his phone and tablet to:
- Take notes with photos and GPS-locations in his field
- Record all his spraying activities for 2020 and 2021
- Record his harvest data per field for 2020 and 2021
He has easily linked information and data to his fields from the previous seasons. This year, he could quickly view notes in one place and, thereby, be reminded of challenges from last season and compare them to pests discovered during the new season. Historical data on previously used herbicides and fungicides are also just a click away and offer insight as to how to go about this season’s challenges.
How Dagobert is using Farmable to manage his orchard
Dagobert says,“When you are out in the field, you see many issues that need fixing. Before, I would put them down in my notebook or on a piece of paper, to make sure I did something about it by the end of the day. Of course, it works, but it is not ideal. It is almost impossible for me to easily get an overview of all my notes related to one field if I don’t want to spend hours in the office again.”
Looking through his app, he can find different notes with photos and GPS-locations attached, with information on:
- Diseases such as fire blight and scab on his apple trees
- Broken fences and support poles for young trees that require fixing after the winter
- Problems with mice in parts of his orchards
- Different pruning techniques to compare plant growth after the winter
“As the season started, it was great to be able to look back at the pruning techniques we applied before the winter in 2020 and observe how different fields started growing,” says Dagobert.
Easily leverage the power of data - past, present and future - in one place
This season, Dagobert recorded notes along the growth stages in his field to keep track of bud development, leaf development, branch development, inflorescence emergence and flowering. This information is not only useful to track for his own use, but also essential to share with his advisor, who appreciates having precise locations and photos recorded of these stages. Next year, they will be able to compare the timing of phenological stages in the blocks to better inform the planning of future crop treatments.
Capturing field observations in the app allowed Dagobert Widemann to leverage both historical data to improve the outcomes this season and to easily share notes from his day-to-day work on the farm. He makes sure everything is stored in one place.
- Get all data to a commonplace - this is hard because there are systems from many vendors, and data sits in silos.
- Create correlation matrix - this is hard because it requires heavy processing capacity to analyze 10 000 by 10 000 relations.
- Identify recognizable failure modes - this is easy; there are already databases for this.
- Connect failure modes to data patterns - this is hard because it requires large sets of experience data.
- Look for patterns - this is hard because it requires "live" analytics on the equipment side (not in the cloud).
We are happy to support Dagobert in his journey to empower his orchards through the power of data. User input is the cornerstone to building a world-class product for tree crop growers from Germany to Australia, and we invite you to join us on this journey. Download the app today and share your ideas with us at support@farmable.tech.
