Vultus and AR Tarim launch disease-control service for potato crops

Vultus AB and AR Tarim, which is part of Agrico and Europlant, have unveiled a new service designed to enhance disease control in potato fields. The offering facilitates the early detection of diseases, enabling growers to improve pesticide management and boost yields.

The service complements Vultus’s existing range of decision-making tools, which cover the whole potato-cultivation process. Utilizing advanced analytics to process weather and field data, the detection system can accurately forecast disease outbreaks and pest infections, including fungal diseases like late and early blight. This allows for swift interventions and reduces the risk of widespread infection.

Vultus’s CEO, Per Karlsson, commented: “With our expertise in precision farming and AR Tarim’s field data, we have developed and now offer a service to predict and control diseases in potato crops. The service is designed to facilitate early decisions for disease control and enable growers to use their pesticides more precisely and efficiently.

“This is naturally a great tool for potato farmers across the globe. All our existing customers can access and use the service immediately. This first version will be further developed with alarms on anomalies and deviations from the expected state at any given time during the growth phase. ‘Anomality Detection’ will be implemented on all our analysis services for potato farmers, irrigation, fertilizer, yield, starch levels etc, in the coming releases,” he added.

AR Tarim’s CEO, Ekrem Suad Sadak, echoed this sentiment, saying: “We are pleased to work with Vultus to develop this service . . . By giving growers access to decisions early on, the service can significantly facilitate the decision-making process for disease control. This not only leads to more efficient use of pesticides but also contributes to reduced environmental impact and optimized productivity.”