When monitoring leaf diseases, experience and good judgment are required to obtain reliable results. Switching focus between the assessed plant and the assessment sheet can be exhausting, and handling plant, pen and paper at the same time can also be a challenge. Alternatively, the leaves for monitoring are plucked on site in the field and then inspected afterwards at the edge of the field or in the office - an additional work step. How can smatrix simplify the work for employees in monitoring and save effort at the same time? We show this in our best practice example for leaf disease monitoring on sugar beet, for which we accompanied Barbara Stanke, an employee of the North Rhine-Westphalian Chamber of Agriculture.
In our use case, the monitoring of leaf diseases on sugar beet is done on fields in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
The experienced employees who do the assessment check the level of infestation with the four main leaf diseases - cercospera, mildew, ramularia and rust - on the sugar beet. To do this, a total of 100 leaves from 100 different plants are checked evenly across the field to obtain a reliable value for infestation. For example, the walkway leads along one side of the field and back on the other side. 50 leaves are checked for each direction. Usually, the leaves are plucked, collected during the walk across the field and then later inspected in detail at the edge of the field or at the workplace to determine how high the infestation with which leaf disease is.
The assessment is carried out once a week at each monitoring site in order to visualize the current infestation and its progress. The collected data is transmitted to central online information systems. By displaying the infestation situation on regional maps, these are important tools for farmers to evaluate the situation on their own land.
smatrix is an app for mobile and electronic data collection only by voice. A smartphone or tablet with the installed app is conveniently stored in a trouser pocket or backpack, and only a headset with microphone is required for operation. In a voice dialog, smatrix systematically guides the employee through the data collection process. So hands and eyes remain free for the assessment. This eliminates the need to pluck the leaves as an additional work step - the infestation can be recorded directly on site at the plant without removing any leaves. As a result, time is saved and no damage to the plant is caused.
The assessment template can quickly and easily be created in smatrix. In this case, the employee proceeds as follows: In smatrix, row 1 is created for the forward path with 50 samples and row 2 for the return path, also with 50 samples. The four leaf diseases cercospera, powdery mildew, ramularia and rust are added as traits, each with a value range from 0 to 100, which corresponds to the infestation as a percentage. The date, type, location and, if necessary, the name of the employee are recorded as additional data. These appear later at the top of the data sheet. After creating the assessment template, which can also be done beforehand in the office, it is opened in smatrix on the tablet or smartphone. The device can then simply be stored in the pocket.
Next, the monitoring expert walks along the rows in the field and records the infestation with leaf diseases on one leaf per plant in the middle leaf layer by speaking the infestation values into the microphone of the headset, for example “cercospera 0, rust 0.1”. Then, smatrix continues to guide the user through the table in a voice dialog. With the help of a countdown, the employee receives regular voice feedback from the app on how many samples still need to be recorded in order to reach the required 50 per row.
This ensures that the assessment has evenly been distributed over the area and that a meaningful infestation pattern is available at the end.
After that, the recorded data could be exported on site for further use. In the present case, further processing usually takes place in Excel. For this purpose, an Excel file of the finished assessment can be exported directly from smatrix.
The exported file can be saved or shared in various ways, depending on your personal workflow. For example, the file can be saved directly on the mobile device or in a cloud service. Sending it by email to colleagues or the farmer who owns the fields is also possible in a fast and simple way. The assessment template can be conveniently copied into smatrix for the next monitoring. This way, the employee already has the empty data sheet for the following week and the other sites to be assessed. For this purpose, it is helpful to add the location and calendar week directly to the file name in order to keep a good overview of your own assessments.
In a similar way, smatrix can also be used for plant protection trials and variety trials on sugar beet or other monitoring of plants and animals. Do you have any questions about how smatrix can support you in monitoring or in your specific use case? We will be happy to advise you free of charge and without obligation and give you tips to make your assessment easier. Write to us for your individual use case.
