About

What is Spraywise Decisions?

  • an innovative internet service that helps rural landholders and contractors to better plan and match the timing of chemical applications to prevailing local weather conditions;
  • supported by Nufarm for the exclusive use of its Australian customers, agricultural retail chains and other interested users;
  • represents a significant addition to the suite of products which any user can purchase, especially Nufarm’s Top Cropper program participants who can redeem loyalty points, remit an annual cash payment or a combination of both;
  • developed and continues to be maintained under contract by FluroSat.

What can it do for me?

  • predicts weather on your farm up to 14 days ahead and records last 14 days of weather;
  • provides 3 hourly forward estimates of rainfall, temperature, wind direction, wind speed and relative humidity for the next 7 days, 12 hourly forward estimates for the following 7 days, evapotranspiration and recent weather as daily values;
  • presents weather parameters as graphical meteograms, tables, maps and animations;
  • combines weather parameters to derive Delta T values in the manner depicted in the accompanying diagram as a guide to the suitability of prevailing conditions for spraying;
  • provides 5 day sunrise and sunset times as a guide to determine spraying activities.
delta t

Why is it unique?

Spraywise Decisions is the only service of its kind that:
  • uses advanced spatial interpolation techniques to generate parameter specific weather data for the nearest 1 km2 grid cell anywhere across Australia;
  • provides access to a virtual weather station and generates forecasts for each paddock;
  • incorporates a user-friendly Spray Planner to convey condition suitability assessments each hour for the next 5 days using red, orange or green traffic light colours and risk specific symbols;
  • presents data for a selection of weather parameters in chart, table, daily map and animated form for the last and next 14 days;
  • streams live images from radar stations operated by the Bureau of Meteorology, national synoptic charts and cloud maps every 6 hours for the last 3 to 4 days;
  • features password protected access, auto-positioning, multi-date satellite imagery, user selectable map theme overlays, real-time display of geographic co-ordinates and viewing scale, unrestricted nation-wide zoom, pan, feature identification, point selection and editing functionality;
  • offers uncluttered viewing, user friendly layout and fingertip control over functionality.

How accurate and reliable is it?

Spraywise Decisions:
  • employs industry standard forecasting models used by leading global weather agencies to generate parameter specific predictions.
  • incorporates definitive accuracy estimates by comparing predicted versus recorded values on an ongoing basis at the nearest of 270 stations for which hourly recordings are made by BOM. A “grey zone” on each meteogram with increasing width signifies that accuracy generally declines in proportion to the length of the prediction time frame.
  • predictions are most reliable for conservative weather parameters such as temperature and relative humidity, moderately reliable for rainfall and Delta T and least reliable for wind direction and speed because regional wind flows are distorted by local topography.
  • wind direction and speed is averaged over 3 hour periods. Instantaneous gusts are affected by local topography and can be up to or even more than three times average wind run speed and vary from prevailing wind directions by up to 90o.
  • comparisons of predicted versus actual weather conditions confirms that temperatures, relative humidity, rainfall and Delta T are reliable for operational spray related decisions out to 7 days in most locations.
  • temperatures, relative humidity, rainfall and Delta T are reliable for operational spray related decisions out to 7 days.
  • similar seasons functionality enables users to identify and rank occasions in history when seasonal conditions over the previous 6 months were similar to this or any other year. Charts present resulting outcomes during the following 6 months for most similar previous seasons.

What other information services can I access?

Spraywise Decisions:
  • represents the first in a series of information services that Nufarm plans to support and provide to its customers.
  • provides access to climatic data, forecasting tools and high resolution base satellite imagery.
  • further details regarding other information systems applications in the Wise Decisions family can be obtained from www.flurosat.com