How to digitize a pesticide´s application time? (part 2: Europe)

The time of application of a crop protection product may depend on several factors such as the crop growth stage (a.k.a. cropstage), the pest life cycle stage (a.k.a. peststage), when the cultural practice take place (e.g. «apply after pruning»), the time of the year (e.g. «apply at spring»), the weather events (e.g. «prior to snow cover»)

The time of application can depend on one of the factors mentioned above or on a combination of several factors.

However, let´s focus on this post on the cropstage.

In Europe BBCH scale is very popular.

Normally BBCH stages have two digits, the first one gives you information about which of the following major phases, the crop is

• 0: Germination, sprouting, bud development
• 1: Leaf development
• 2: Formation of side shoots, tillering
• 3: Stem elongation or rosette growth, shoot development
• 4: Development of harvestable vegetative plant parts, bolting
• 5: Inflorescene emergence, heading
• 6: Flowering
• 7: Development of fruit
• 8: Ripening or maturity of fruit and seed
• 9: Senescence, beginning of dormancy

The second digit is more specific for each crop. In this link you can find BBCH information for several crops.

In the following video you can see a field of cereal at BBCH 13

In the next post, I will explain my own proposal to digitize the time of application. For doing so, I will provide several examples coming from labels of several pesticides registered across countries.