Stay a Step Ahead of Hail Damage

July 5, 2018

Farmers notoriously love talking about the weather. And rightly so — it impacts their livelihood. In most instances, the relationship between farmers and the weather is very one-sided. Mother Nature is the boss; she levels the judgement and farmers find themselves either reaping the benefits or salvaging the remains.

However, while growers can’t influence the weather, they can adopt management decisions that take into account how broad weather patterns affect their bottom line. They can also leverage software tools that put them a step ahead after a major weather event occurs.

David Renkas, a Saskatchewan farmer, has been making the most of the Hail Alerts feature in Trimble Ag Software.

“Hail Alerts point you in the right direction and save you a lot of miles, especially with the remote areas of a farm and fields being so spread out,” says Renkas. “You might not have easy access to the far end of a particular field, but if you knew that’s where hail hit, you’d go out and check rather than getting a surprise at harvest time.”

Pictured below is an example of the contoured maps sent to the Trimble Training Center in Fort Collins, CO on June 20 following a hail event.

As you can see with this map, farmers get specific information about damaged areas right in their inbox with Trimble Ag Software’s Hail Alerts. By seeing a hail coverage map overlaid on their field boundaries, farmers know the precise location and size of hail. This information can save them time and money when scouting fields to assess the damage.

Hail Alerts is part of Trimble’s Ag Premium Weather. For farmers with busy operations, working with Mother Nature rather than against her can make all the difference. With Hail Alerts, farmers can:

• Save valuable time by knowing precisely when and where their farmland has been hit by a hail event, including the size of the hail.
• Skip a lot of the guesswork by know exactly where to go — or direct their crop scout, field agronomist or hail adjuster to go — to assess the damage and investigate possible remedy treatments.

Ag Premium Weather helps farmers with up-to-date tracking of precipitation, temperature, and growing degree days —  without the worry of physical rain gauges or expensive in-field hardware. Customers get current and historical precipitation data, which enables them to improve operational planning, anticipate yield potential and adjust yield goals.

Ag Premium Weather is an add-on module to the Farmer Pro bundle. Data can be viewed from the Trimble Ag Mobile app, available for download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Or get a free demo of Hail Alerts today!