Smoke from wildfires can negatively impact grape and other food crops. Airborne molecules containing volatile phenols can be absorbed into the grapes through their permeable skins. Enzymes in the grapes bind the phenols with sugars, creating new compounds which can negatively affect taste.
The UPL Crop S.A.F.E. tool (Smoke And Fire Events) helps identify crop risk from smoke and fire events, allowing you to remotely track smoke hazards and accumulations, in addition to temperature variances and air quality.
Smoke Hazard Map
The UPL Crop S.A.F.E. application provides a cumulative Smoke Hazard metric, with data from today, yesterday and six days prior. This satellite-derived risk map shows regions with high accumulated risk of smoke taint for agricultural produce and other sensitive agricultural activities. It is accumulated daily from March 1 to February 28 each year.
When smoke risk accumulations are high, test your fruit for impact and discuss options with your agronomist.
Daily Satellite-Derived Smoke
This daily image is derived from a geostationary image of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), which is a measure of the amount of particles in the atmosphere (dust, smoke, pollution). These particles block sunlight by absorbing or by scattering light, affecting the amount of energy that reaches plants for their use in photosynthesis.
Cycle through the data over the past seven days to observe the movement of smoke and haze due to the emergence of new fires and changing winds.
Daily Maximum Temperature
You can track temperature history and related heat stress on agricultural crops for today and the seven previous days.
Cycle through the data over the past seven days to observe changes in high temperatures over large areas and anticipate the probable emergence of new fires.
Land Surface Temperature
Land surface temperature images show how hot the “surface” of the Earth would feel to the touch in a particular location, indicating heat stress on agricultural crops and vegetation in Celsius degrees.
Cycle through the data over the past seven days to observe changes in land surface temperature over large areas and anticipate the probable emergence of new fires.
Air Quality Index
The application also provides an Air Quality Index from the EPA, with daily ozone and particulate data to know when it’s safe to be in the field. The worse the air quality, the more important it is to take breaks, do less intense activities and watch for symptoms.
Click on the circles to see the PM10 and Ozone observations for each point on the map. Colors of the circles represent low, medium and high threat levels.
