Solving crop problems with a camera

Monday, February 3, 2014

A picture can save hours or days in resolving crop problems. Here's a list of dos and don'ts when sending photos to your crop advisor

by PAT LYNCH

A picture is worth a thousand words. But when it involves pictures of problem fields, a picture is worth thousands of words and can save hours or days in resolving crop problems.

The advent of smartphones and BlackBerry technology means you can be standing in a field and within minutes have your CCA or agronomist or retail dealer viewing a problem in one of your fields.

The past year I have helped a number of people solve their crop problems using this technology.

And I did not have to drive miles to see the field. One of the most interesting ones this year was a lightning hit in a soybean field. I could have driven an hour and a half to see it. But I diagnosed it with wireless technology. Some of the pictures I received were better than others. The following is a list of dos and don'ts.

There is a knack in taking pictures. You need a steady hand. If you don't have that, then use a rest like hunters do to steady a gun. I have received quite a few blurry pictures that mean nothing. To determine if your picture is good quality, zoom in the picture. You can send different levels of quality. Send the highest quality that you can. This allows whoever is viewing it also to zoom in. When sending high-quality pictures, just send one at a time.

You need four pictures of the problem. The first is a general picture of the field showing areas that are affected. Next, you need a picture about 10 feet from some affected plants. Then you need a close-up of the symptoms.

The fourth picture is of the roots. Often they tell a lot about a problem. If possible, this shot should show where the seed was. This shows planting depth. It is nice to have a root shot of good and poor plants. A root shot is imperative when you are sending a weed picture.

Do not send eight or 10 pictures of the same view, hoping there is something there that you missed. Just send one of each view. Opening each picture takes time. Then you have to go back through them all to find the best. So just send the best.

You can send the same pictures to various people. Then it is nice for those people to see what the others think is occurring.

When you are deciding on what to send, think about possible causes of your crop problem. If it is soil or fertility related, you will need to show that in your general picture of the field. You will need to see low and high areas or areas with different soil types. If it is disease related, again the overall field shot gives some perspective. Certain diseases tend to be worse in growthy areas.

Often crop problems are manmade. They follow the pattern of equipment either this year or last year – things like planting depth, compaction or even a different crop in the rotation. To get a perspective on this, you need to have a picture down the rows as opposed to across the rows.

Send a picture to yourself for your home computer. You can file these in the records you keep on each farm. And if you want, you can even send me one. BF

Consulting agronomist Pat Lynch, CCA (ON), formerly worked with the Ontario agriculture ministry and with Cargill.