Cercospora is a fungal disease of sugar beet, that can spread if temperature and humidity are both high. If there is severe disease pressure, lesions on the leaves coalesce and the entire leaf can be lost.
BBRO is working with Sencrop, developers of connected weather stations, to create an agronomic indication for Cercospora disease risk that will provide early alert through the Sencrop mobile app.
Humidity key to Cercospora disease risk
Following a year of high levels of Cercospora infection in 2020, British Sugar funded an extensive network of weather stations in sugar beet growing areas. These included 40 Sencrop Raincrop connected rain gauges and Sencrop Leafcrop leaf wetness in-crop sensors. These were used to monitor the risk of Cercospora in sugar beet crops in the 2021 harvest season.
BBRO head of knowledge exchange, Dr Simon Bowen comments that the relative humidity is a big factor in disease development: “Cercospora development is relatively suppressed at low humidity, even when temperatures are quite warm. However, when we start getting humidity levels of more than 90% for 10-15 hours per day, the disease becomes more active, even at lower temperatures.”
BBRO provided additional information on Cercospora control to growers and agronomists in twice-weekly updates during the 2021 season, using additional SMS (text) messaging when required with information also available via the BBROplus area of BBRO’s website.
Simon says that feedback from the farmers was very positive. “The 2020 season showed how quick and aggressive the disease can be and that you cannot give it the opportunity to get established. For 2021 those who got the fungicide on early, in response to the warning, and kept a tight spraying interval got better control of Cercospora than those who didn’t.”
Cercospora agronomic indicator on mobile app
This season, BBRO and British Sugar staff are monitoring the 40 Sencrop weather stations every day via the Sencrop mobile app which displays the Cercospora agronomic indicator. The indicator will be used to give farmers an early warning of when their crop is at risk according to their postcode, along with advice on how, whether and when to spray via SMS text message, the BBRO website or BBRO Bulletin.
The Sencrop Raincrop connected rain gauge is an agricultural weather station that gives farmers real-time weather updates straight from their fields. Sencrop’s mobile app allows collection and analysis from a farm’s weather stations and other stations around. This allows farmers to make informed and targeted decisions concerning crops, anticipating risks and diseases, prioritising actions and applying treatments at optimal times.
Head of product at Sencrop, Kevin Guibert says: “We have worked hand-in-hand with BBRO to develop an accurate and easy-to-use tool. The indicator was tested for more than a season before its launch this month.
“We welcome feedback from sugar beet growers on how the tool can be further improved so we can keep progressing it.”