Australia’s Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) recently released a new crop modeling tool that can assist cotton producers to estimate potential yield throughout the growing season.
Nicknamed ‘BARRY’ (Biometric Agronomy for Realising Representative Yield), the tool provides a snapshot of metrics at the key growth stages of the first flower, cut-out, flowering progression, and end of the season, taking into account region, climate, production type, and variety.
BARRY has been developed in partnership with the Australian government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), utilizing the extensive agronomic database collected from CSD’s Ambassador Network and Variety Trial programs and CSIRO’s machine learning algorithms to estimate potential yield with reliable accuracy.
Last cotton season, CSD partnered with a number of growers to conduct field trial tests to evaluate the accuracy of the program. BARRY can provide a better understanding of crop potential, allowing growers to make management decisions with confidence, Stewart Brotherton, CSD extension and development agronomist for Central Queensland was quoted as saying by Australian media reports.
BARRY takes into account the stage of the crop and the seasonal conditions in real-time, providing valuable data for a grower or consultant to make management decisions if required, Brotherton said.
“For example, if the flowering progression snapshot suggests a lower yield prediction than the grower is aiming for, they can change their management of the crop to rectify or control the outcome. Alternatively, the first flower snapshot may show that the crop has good yield potential, giving the grower confidence in their decisions as the season progresses,” he added.
The technology behind BARRY also enables a grower or consultant to assess (in real-time) the yield prediction for the practices they have implemented, and over time build data on the outcomes of various scenarios.
