Editors' Notebook

A little less than a year ago, I noted in this space that DTN had new owners, and it appeared that would make for some exciting growth for the company as a whole, and the agriculture division in particular.

It's happening.

The hottest news, happening as you likely read this, is our new DTN Spray Outlook tool, being launched through the MyDTN.com subscriber website. This tool, which DTN developers have been feverishly working on over the winter, is aimed at helping tame the logistical issues around applying herbicides and other crop chemicals under proper weather conditions. The tool uses DTN's well-known weather prowess to consider issues such as wind speed, humidity, and expected rainfall, to give users a look at some of the best windows to apply pesticides based on the product's actual label requirements. And best of all, it's a free upgrade for existing MyDTN customers.

The tool, set to launch the evening of March 29, will be found in the inside of the Ag Weather portion of MyDTN. If you have a DTN weather station, you'll also find the outlook tool within your station console. A mobile version of the tool is coming, so watch for updates on that.

Speaking of the weather stations network, DTN has a new tool to help network farmers fine-tune their nitrogen applications. If you attended the National Farm Machinery Show or subsequent farm shows, you may have heard about DTN's partnership with Agronomic Technology Corp, which is now owned by fertilizer manufacturer Yara International. That partnership will pair our on-farm weather network with ATC's Adapt-N nitrogen-modeling system to help determine in-season how much nitrogen is available for the corn crop. It also includes ATC's N-Insight diagnostic tool for overall nitrogen planning.

You can learn more about that here: https://www.dtn.com/…

We've also been on the company growth mode. A few weeks ago, DTN announced the planned acquisition of Spensa Technologies, a new company that, among other things, is building high-tech sensors to monitor insects, weeds and diseases. The possibilities for alerting DTN customers to pest issues, before those pest cause serious yield damage, fits well with our long history of giving you the insights you need to make smart business decisions. More on Spensa, if you're curious, can be found at https://spensatech.com/….

Not to be outdone, we'll have some cool things happening in the DTN/PF newsroom as well ... more on that soon.

Greg D. Horstmeier can be reached at greg.horstmeier@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @greghorstmeier

(AG)

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