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Credit: Cnes One sensor company, Crop Systems, which produces soil moisture probes and weather stations which communicate their readings over mobile networks and display the info in online platforms and apps, say they cannot keep up with the local and international demand for their products. In areas such as Hartbeespoort, over-irrigating can cause salt logging. Furthermore, irrigation costs dwarf the cost of the probes, especially on large commercial farms, which often employ several probes depending on their crop and soil types and elevation differences across croplands.
Drones are also increasing in popularity among commercial farmers. Mid-way through the fair, French drone company Parrot sold out its Bluegrass Fields quad copter agricultural drone. The drone manufacturer also showcased its recently launched Anafi Thermal drone, highlighting the increasing sophistication of this technology. But drones are not only used for geo-intelligence and data applications such as creating NDVIs, multispectral or automated crop-counting datasets.
This has cost and environmental benefits, and saves farmers time, given the speed of drones. Geospatial companies from the mining and other sectors are now looking for new business opportunities in agriculture and are tailoring their solutions and building on their current experience.
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Many drone companies attended the fair this year for the first time. Rocketfarm, part of the Rocketmine group, as well as GeoFarmSA, a subsidiary of GeoSpace International, are two examples of geo-companies to have launched agricultural businesses in recent months. Rocketfarm offers drone data services similar to its mining company, Rocketmine. GeoFarmSA combines its online service, which uses satellite-derived data with ground sensors for farmers.
These, through mobile networks, gather data to calibrate the satellite-derived models. Credit: Stats SA. While there is scope for broader data products and services adoption, some trends are already emerging. Services are almost all based on subscription models, with the data delivered via apps and mobile platforms that users access with web-browsers, and the data displayed on graphs, maps and dashboards for quick analyses.
During the same week, although not at Nampo, Aerobotics, which employs artificial intelligence in tree crop farming, and Agri SA have partnered to provide all South African farmers with free satellite data and an in-field scouting application Aeroview. During the third dekad of October planting of any cultivar is subject to low frost risk; hence planting in this period is recommended. This is a good time to plant all cultivars so that they can avoid early onset of frost in autumn, particularly in the elevated eastern Free State region.
In these low frost risk areas the likelihood of frost damage during the growing period starting in October for all the three growing period lengths is minimal. Interpolated maps from December onwards are specific to the cultivar length since at these planting dates, the longer the growing period the higher the chances of the latter stages of the crop development coinciding with early frost occurring in March and April. Altitude and topography play a crucial role in the eastern parts where daily minimum temperatures drop significantly in autumn.
On the other hand, frost occurrence in the southern parts may be caused by frontal systems that start to traverse the region. When planting the day maize cultivar at the end of December, the autumn frost risk increases drastically in this planting dekad over the entire province.
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Planting a day maize cultivar during the first dekad of January is still expected to experience low risk of frost during the growing period for most parts of the Free State according to long-term climate data Figure 5. Planting a day crop is not recommended in most parts of the province except in patches of the western and southwestern parts. As for the day crop planted in the same dekad, high frost risk is evident in most parts.
Probability of frost occurring within the growing period is relatively high during the start of the rainy season in September Figure 6. The values are high when planting during the first dekad of September and they decrease with time as the temperatures in the region increase.
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It can be depicted from Figure 6 that probabilities for planting short day or medium day or long day season crops are identical when planting in September and October, mainly because most of the frost occurrences are during the early stage of plant development. Thus, the length of the growing period is not the main factor during those planting periods. The lowest probabilities are mostly evident from the second dekad of October onwards to mostly January, depending on the locality and length of the growing period. The period of low frost probability is longer for day growing period followed by day growing period while the day growing period is shorter.
In contrast, short season varieties can be planted until the third dekad of November as a result of a planting window of a month or more. Planting window for colder places like Bloemfontein in the central Free State, Ficksburg and Frankfort in the east, and Zastron in the south is also relatively short with only 60 days October second dekad to December first dekad , 40 days October second dekad to November second dekad , and 40 days October third dekad to November third dekad , respectively.
Other areas like Bothaville, Hertzogville, and Virginia in the northwestern and western parts have the longest planting windows for the day crop over 90 days September third dekad to December second dekad , days September second dekad to last dekad of December , and 90 days last dekad of September to second dekad of December , respectively. In these areas, planting of field crops like maize and sorghum can be subject to low frost risk in most parts of the growing period and thus they are suitable areas provided water requirements and other important environmental conditions of the crops are met [ 24 ].
The planting windows for a medium crop day are longer by 10—40 days, while for a short season crop day they are longer by 10—50 days as compared with that for a day crop. Agricultural production is highly affected by frost and cold temperatures in temperate climate areas [ 6 ] and this has an impact on food security in developing countries like South Africa. The results of this study show that high altitude areas in the Free State Province have high risk of frost, which is consistent with the findings of Tait and Zheng [ 17 ] and Laughlin and Kalma [ 25 ].
In the Free State, it can be depicted that early planting has considerable risk of frost in most areas in the province Figures 2 , 3 , 4 , and 6. Planting of annual crops during September and early October faces high risk of frost damage in the northeast, some parts of central Free State, and southwestern parts and hence delay in planting is recommended for these areas [ 26 , 27 ]. In addition, the beginning of the rainy season September to October is characterised by high atmospheric water vapour deficits [ 21 ] and erratic rainfall [ 28 ].
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In the case of fruit trees, it is advised that measures be taken to alleviate the impact of frost as it can be damaging to flowers and fruits [ 17 ]. For other frost sensitive crops like maize, early planting such as in October, September, and early November, any late frost has a damaging effect on crops at an early vegetative stage [ 8 , 27 ]. The maps for frost probability during different growing periods depict high frost risk during early plantings and the degree of frost severity is the same for all the growing periods, but when planting crops in December onwards, the length of the growing period determines the risk.
Since areas with high frequency of frost are likely to experience major crop losses [ 2 ], areas over the northeastern parts of the province are highly vulnerable and frost sensitive crops have to be planted with caution. Crops with relatively short growing periods would be appropriate for minimizing the chances of crop failure.
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The longer the growing period the higher the chances of reaching high frost risk zone in the months of April, May, and June. Figures 3 — 6 also show high frost risk during the planting months of December onwards. These planting days subject crops to frost damage later on in their development stages. It is highly documented that the flowering and grain-filling stages of cereals are the most sensitive to frost and thus any frost incidence at these stages has a detrimental effect on productivity [ 12 ].
In fruit trees, early frost can also cause bacterium infection due to frost damage on growing shoots [ 17 ]. In the Free State Province, frost risk to crops is one of the main agroclimatological hazards having negative impacts on the production quantity and quality [ 26 ]. Combination of frost and other agroclimatological hazards makes cultivation of summer crops very risky [ 24 ]. It is recommended that growers be aware of the frost climatology and other agroclimatological risks in their areas so that they can minimize damage to their crops by avoiding susceptible crop growth stages coinciding with the period of greatest risks [ 17 , 24 , 29 ].
There has been no estimate in South Africa of the monetary value of frost damage to crops but this could reach millions of South African Rand as there are widespread reports of frost damage countrywide every year [ 5 , 27 , 30 — 36 ]. Annual frost losses to agricultural activities amount to over million dollars in Australia [ 12 ] and frost damage exceeding 1 billion dollars annually was recorded in some years in the United States since to date [ 37 ]. The day crop showed low frost risk for planting from the second dekad of October to the last dekad of December, while planting the day cultivar has low chance of frost risk damage from the second dekad of October to first dekad of December for most parts of the Free State Province.
The appropriate planting days that minimize the frost risk for planting day, day, and day cultivars are in November and the first 10 days of December in most places. As is to be expected, the risk increases with the increase in cultivar length with the day cultivar having higher frequency of frost damage before it matures.
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Farmers are thus encouraged to take into consideration frost climatology when planning their agricultural activities. Special thanks are due to Dr. Fyfield of the ARC for editing the manuscript.
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Journal overview. Special Issues. Academic Editor: Anthony R. Received 22 Feb Revised 13 May Accepted 04 Jun Published 26 Jul Abstract Frost is one of the devastating agroclimatological hazards affecting crop production in the Free State Province of South Africa. Introduction Weather extremes affecting agriculture are a major concern in recent times and are projected to increase in intensity in the future [ 1 ].
Data and Methods 2. Study Area The risk of frost varies greatly in the Free State Province due to the contrasting topography and geographical aspect [ 8 ]. Data The daily minimum temperature dataset from to was used in the analysis for determination of frost risk assessment in the Free State Province.
Table 1. Free State Province climate stations used in the frost risk analysis.
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Table 2. Climate stations in neighbouring provinces and Lesotho used in the frost risk analysis. Figure 1. Spatial distribution of climate stations located in and around the Free State Province of South Africa that were used in frost risk analysis. Table 3. Geographical information of selected climate stations in the Free State Province used in the study. Figure 2. Figure 3.