Helping Farmers Make Better Chemical Application Decisions

Planning tool clearly identifies inversion risks for individual fields

Farmers and chemical applicators working to avoid spray drift and related chemical application issues have a new strategy tool, the DTN Spray Outlook. Built by DTN, agriculture’s leading independent source of insight and analysis, the tool combines the company’s award-winning, field-based weather forecasting with the ability to plug in the parameters of the specific product being sprayed to show the best times to apply that product.

With today’s volatile chemicals, the risk of off-target applications is a significant concern for many farmers and can result in costly legal issues. Likewise, stricter regulations make the timing and accuracy of spraying operations absolutely crucial. Weather conditions play a major factor, particularly surface temperature inversions that can suspend chemical droplets in the air. When conditions change, the droplets can “drift” off course, putting neighboring crops, trees and lawns at risk of damage. Wind and rain also are common spraying challenges.

DTN Spray Outlook helps farmers and chemical applicators avoid such issues with a comprehensive view of all variables. In addition, it helps farmers safely maximize spray windows, improve planning and avoid costly reapplications. It offers fully customizable thresholds and transparent calculations, which are compatible with diverse chemical applications throughout the entire growing season. Its best-in-class weather information is updated in real time, providing immediate insight into changing conditions.

Available through the company’s DTN Ag Weather Tools app and MyDTN service, DTN Spray Outlook delivers inversion risk forecasts for specific locations using intuitive red/yellow/green color coding. It also provides hour-by-hour outlooks for the next seven days, as well as the ability to compare multiple locations. The addition of an on-site DTN Ag Weather Station can further enhance the outlooks with highly local weather and agronomic information, providing true field-level insights.

“Today’s farmers face tight margins,” explained Karen Madden, senior vice president of agriculture and energy at DTN. “We are committed to helping them boost yields, reduce risk and control costs with actionable insights that support their toughest decisions. DTN Spray Outlook is essential to that goal.”