How to improve your crop protection with the Defense module of xFarm

One of the fundamental aspects of agricultural production is crop protection. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of challenges for farmers in this area either: climate change, the advent of new pests, and rising costs of crop protection products make crop protection an increasingly complicated task.

To provide farmers with a tool to support them in protecting their crops, xFarm has developed the dedicated Defense module. The Defense module enables improved crop protection strategies by increasing the efficiency of sprays, saving time in recording treatments, and preventing disease outbreaks.  

How the Defense module works

In order to use the Defense module, you will need to install a leaf wetness sensor (xLeaf), a device that simulates foliar moisture. The Defense module uses the environmental parameters detected by the sensors to develop customized predictive models based on the data revealed within your farm. This will enable you to identify the optimal times to enter the field, preventing the onset of plant diseases with precise treatments, saving resources and better protecting production.  

1. Define defense priorities.

Within the "Management" page, you can view all your fields with relative probability of attack by the different pathogens: in this way, you will always have the situation under control and can better define the priorities of your crop protection campaign.  

2. View details for each individual zone registered in the platform

By clicking on the individual fields, you can access the "Zone Detail" page, where you can get detailed information about the selected field such as the probability of attack for each pathogen, the last defense activities carried out, graphs showing the degree of risk and protection, treatment residual, phenological stage, degree days, leaf moisture, and many other environmental parameters useful for defining your defense strategy.

3. Customized alerts for timely intervention

The Alerts module allows you to use data collected through the weather station and automatic insect traps to create customized alerts and notifications. Simply choose a rule (e.g., "alert me when the degree of protection is at its lowest") and how alerts are sent (message or email). You can also limit alerts to specific plots.

In this way, you can be promptly informed about the most critical situations and intervene accordingly.

4. Constantly updated product warehouse

By entering defense activities within the platform, the plant protection products used will be automatically scaled up from the warehouse, maintaining an up-to-date inventory.