Potatoes - Crop Use Guide
Pre-Canopy
Granular Insights Frequency:
- Leverage weekly Directed Scouting emails to highlight top fields of interest.
- Log into Granular Insights at least 1-2 times a week.
- Use the Field Ranking filters to check crop rankings against what you know what your fields.
What to Look For & Actions to Take:
- Early Weed Detection: Look for areas of relatively high vegetation areas to determine if cultivation or herbicide application is necessary before planting.
- Poor Germination/Replant Decisions: Gain perspective on stand counts to determine if replant is needed. Look for lower vegetation and variability to identify areas to scout.
- Mechanical Issues: Watch for repetitive patterns, striping, or straight lines that may have been caused by a planter skipping or a sprayer malfunction in which can easily be seen within the vegetation index.
Canopy
- Leverage weekly Directed Scouting emails to highlight top fields of interest.
- Log into Granular Insights at least 3-4 times a week.
- Use the Field Ranking filters to check crop rankings against what you know what your fields.
What to Look For & Actions to Take:
- Nutrient Deficiencies: Follow the topography to track areas of low progress in the vegetation index that may indicate loss due to environmental conditions. See diseases that directly affect the foliage reflect in the vegetation index.
- Missed Input Applications: Watch for repetitive patterns, striping, or straight lines that may have been caused by a sprayer or pivot malfunction. Potatoes require a lot of water during the growing season, determine if they are getting too little or too much.
- Pest/Disease Issues: Localized but irregular areas of low progress in the vegetation index. See where insect pressure begins in the field and where it spreads to determine if an insecticide application is necessary.
Reproductive
Granular Insights Frequency:
- Leverage weekly Directed Scouting emails to highlight top fields of interest.
- Log into Granular Insights at least 1-2 times a week.
- Use the Field Ranking filters to check crop rankings against what you know what your fields.
What to Look For & Actions to Take:
- Fungicide Decisions: Watch for areas of decreasing vegetative index to scout for potential fungicide application decisions.
- Yield Checks: Use vegetation index to put a number to high, medium and low vegetative scores throughout the field to get an accurate yield prediction.
- Weather Events: Follow the vegetation index for past and present weather events to follow rebounds, or to help calculate financial impact for insurance purposes.
- Burn-off: After spraying fields with a desiccant to prep for harvest, you will likely see spotty, lower vegetation areas based upon how the field has been sprayed. As the vines fully dry out, you will see the vegetation index return to a consistent medium vegetation index. Keep an eye out for a blue, higher vegetation areas of the field that may not have fully dried to ensure the entire field is ready for harvesting.
Harvest & Beyond
- Leverage weekly Directed Scouting emails to highlight top fields of interest.
- Log into Granular Insights at least 2-3 times a week.
- Use the Field Ranking filters to check crop rankings against what you know what your fields.
What to Look For & Actions to Take:
- Management Practices: Adjust crop rotations based on trends visible in vegetation index. See more productive parts of fields to determine norms in vegetation index for further scouting.
- Fertility: Because potatoes are scouted so often to be able to determine VRT applications for future years from monitor data and soil maps on Insights.
- Crop: Make rotation decisions based on performance and health quantified in imagery. Decide when it is time to dig for drying purposes based on dry down period on vegetation index.
*Not all uses and decisions that can be made at this time are documented above.*
