Savvy Farmer simplifies all pesticide selection

A lot of companies and associations have “great websites and great web tools”  to keep people informed and make life easier. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

But, one recent website/software I was pointed towards, which I think is just a great idea is called Savvy Farmer. It costs $199 per year to subscribe to the web-based software, but what it does is help a farmer or crop advisor in selecting the proper crop protection products, to deal with whatever weeds or insects are out there, and it also shows cost per acre depending on the product chosen.

You can read more about it in the May 2011 issue of Grainews, or visit the Savvy Farmer website at www.savvyfarmer.com

This program, developed by former Syngenta president Warren Libby and technical partner Sam Vurrabindi, has brought together a data base of all registered crop protection products in Canada, along with all the known weeds, diseases and insects that can affect some 756 crops. The program can calculate something like four million treatments with different product combinations.

So you as a farmer would subscribe for access to the software program, enter some basic information like your province, the type of crop, the weeds, disease or insects to be controlled for each field, and hit search, and in about three seconds the program gives you all the product options for controlling the crop pest, as well as a cost range per acre for each product, based on suggested retail price.

Talk about slick!  Maybe your mind is like a steel trap and you can remember all the brand and generic product names, new combinations, new formulations and all the different weeds, or insects, or diseases the respective products can control. I can’t. Once you get passed glyphosate I am lost.

I ran through a Savvy Farmer demo and even I could figure it out. It is that simple.

If you’re in Saskatchewan looking to control narrow leaved hawks beard and stinkweed in malt barley, for example — enter that basic info and BAM the program gives you your two or three dozen product options, the herbicide group, rates and tank mixes, and cost of each product per acre.

It is a great idea and looks to be very thoroughly and professionally done. Along with Grainews and Savvy Farmer website, Shaun Haney of Real Agriculture has a video interview with Warren Libby and demonstration on his website at www.realagriculture.com . Just go to the realagriculture.com website, enter Savvy Farmer in the search window and watch the interview.

Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com

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