CABI has launched the Crop Sprayer App – the latest tool in the PlantwisePlus Toolkit – aimed at helping smallholder farmers calculate how much pesticide to use when treating their crops and protecting them from pests and diseases
Using Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approaches, farmers can implement a coordinated and planned strategy for the prevention, detection and control of pests, weeds, and diseases that can combine the use of both chemical pesticides and safer-to-use and environmentally friendly bioprotection products as well as other preventive management solutions.
As part of IPM plans, smallholder farmers around the world sometimes have to spray pesticides to protect their crops and, ultimately, their livelihoods as well as local, regional and national food security.
CABI created the Crop Sprayer App – which can also be used by agricultural extension workers and agro-input dealers – to help address challenges such as the overuse of pesticides. The Crop Sprayer App can calculate how much pesticide concentrate to put in different sized pesticide sprayers. It can also work out how many spray tanks will be needed to spray an area and how much pesticide concentrate will be needed in total.
Moreover, the app is free for everyone to download and use and is available in English, French, Spanish, Swahili and Bengali. The CABI BioProtection Portal can be used alongside the Crop Sprayer App as it provides up-to-date information to identify, source and apply registered microbial biopesticide products in a given country and thereby supports the rational application of these nature-based pest management solutions.
