It's cheap, easy to use and can help boost yields. A canopy management tool on his phone is helping Jack Hopkins even out any variability with his oilseed rape crops and accurately target his fertiliser programme.In the lush Herefordshire landscape where rolling hills are filled with fruit trees and livestock, producing arable crops is not always straightforward.The silt clay loams, on which Lower Hope Farm is based, can see huge variations in crops, and combined with relatively small field sizes means management is a completely different ball game v here than further east.The app that assistant farm manager Mr Hopkins uses on his phone helps counter these disadvantages by taking a picture of the crop and measuring the green area index (GAI), which can then be used to calculate fertiliser rates.
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