MetWatch has come a long way since its early days more than two decades ago. Back then, a young Mike Barley was working on a Pentium Pro PC in a makeshift office tucked away in a garage down Riverslea Road in Hawke's Bay.

He had just stepped into the hotseat at an agri-tech startup called HortPlus, with ambitions of using data modelling and visualisation to bring pest and disease science to growers in a way they could use on orchard in their daily decision-making.

"We saw huge potential in the difference data could make for productivity and better environmental outcomes, but it had to be more than just numbers and pivot tables," Barley says. "In those early days our system was all software based and growers had to dial into weather stations directly and have a fax machine to get the latest reports. There was a real opportunity to make a transformational difference by making weather, pest and disease modelling information available on the world wide web, and in a way that was easy for salt of the earth Kiwis to understand and use"

Fast forward to today and HortPlus has gone a long way towards achieving that goal. Mike and his team of 11 have moved into an office in downtown Wellington, ditching the Pentium Pros for modern technology and partnering with some of New Zealand's leading scientific brains to create tools thousands of growers now use.

Its flagship online platform, MetWatch, is used by thousands of growers in a wide variety of different horticultural sectors, as well as researchers and science bodies including Plant & Food Research, Foundation for Arable Research, and more.

"Time flies quickly when you're in tech. We've come a long way; it's amazing to think our first steps as a business literally took place around the turn of the millennium."

Mike believes what makes HortPlus stand out, and the key to its success, is its ability to understand growers' needs and present some of New Zealand's most complex pest and disease models, science and data all on one platform and in a way that is easy to use.

MetWatch does this through graphs, heat maps and intuitive filters that serve up easy-to-understand information, at a glance, that growers need for the particular crops they are interested in and the pests and disease affecting them.

The platform now caters for all manner of crops, from kiwifruit, apples and pears to summerfruit, grapes, berries and vegetables, with relevant pest and disease risk models for each.

Weather data is also available, including from HortPlus' nationwide network of on-orchard weather stations, along with complementary tools such as soil-moisture and evapotranspiration trackers, and a model for apple and grape growers exploring the future impacts of climate change.

"There's a sea of data out there, but you'll get lost if you sail into it without a plan. In some ways MetWatch is like a tour guide, taking growers to the most interesting information and guiding them to the places they really want to visit."

Esteemed New Zealand researcher and horticulture consultant Dr Jim Walker is one of the many scientists whose contributions have nurtured, tended and seen MetWatch blossom into its current state.

He has been involved since the beginning, when the Apple Black Spot Monitor was sent to consultancies and large orchards by fax machine, providing weather info and apple black spot disease risk information based on local weather station data.

"From those primitive beginnings – they seemed sophisticated at the time – MetWatch has now got to a stage where every grower in the country relies on that info in one form or another. The whole system of apple production is reliant on that model, and to a lesser extent the fire blight model. When the wind module was introduced, [MetWatch] gave people the ability to look forward and plan a bit more carefully around when they were going to spray."

Walker says the ease of viewing data in MetWatch means it is widely used in the scientific community for research and trials to help identify high-risk infection periods and undertake analysis of when infections started and stopped, and what impact mitigations have had.

It's also welcomed by scientists who want to ensure the valuable research they do can reach growers in a way that is easy to understand and interpret. The science is often complex, but the way it is presented within MetWatch, using graphs and visualisations, makes it easy for growers and others without a scientific background to interpret, he says.

Among MetWatch's many grower champions is orchard manager Pete Bennie, who uses MetWatch to improve the way he manages Leaning Rock Cherries near Alexandra, in Central Otago.

"I'm using it regularly at the start of every apple growing season looking at the probability of frost," Pete says. "And then as we get into November and December, I'm using it to understand disease threat, rainfall and when I need to irrigate."

Another advocate is orchardist David Wells, who uses the portal to help improve decision-making on his orchard at Ngaturi, east of Whanganui. The Manawatu-Whanganui area isn't as well known for kiwifruit as many other parts of New Zealand, but the weather and disease data and daily email report generated by the MetWatch helps him gain an edge.

"Basically, I'm a bit of a weather nut," he says. "I'm particularly interested in the chill units and Psa risk model on the Weather & Disease Portal. I'm also the KVH co-ordinator for Whanganui region, which provides further motivation for my interest in the portal."

Barley says he is thrilled with how far MetWatch has come in its first 25 years, "but it's only the beginning".

"There's so much more we can do with this platform and I'm really looking forward to seeing how far we can push it, particularly when it comes to new areas like irrigation management, harvest timing and yield prediction. We are now looking for international opportunities and we've just connected more than 600 Bureau of Meteorology weather stations in Australia to our network – there's such an appetite for data presented in a visual and user-friendly way and I can't help but think we've only scratched the surface."

The MetWatch Weather and Disease Portal – By Crop

Apples and Pears

MetWatch powers the New Zealand Apples & Pears Weather and Disease Portal, which includes a range of crop-specific disease models, including models for black spot and fire blight, along with a bespoke pheromone trap monitoring data entry system and a codling moth sensitive market phenology model for New Zealand.

MetWatch is used by some individual pack houses and consultancies too. Among them is Fruition Hawke's Bay, which has recently worked with HortPlus to develop bespoke easy-to-understand orchard maps in its client portal to display scanning data generated by Green Atlas Cartographer orchard scanners.

Prospective buyers of apple orchards can also benefit from HortPlus' work via the Changing Climate: Disease Risk and Costs Tool, created as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge. The tool allows people to enter their orchards address to view the risk of apple fire blight on their crops under different climate change scenarios.

Arable Crops and Farming

MetWatch is the force behind the Foundation for Arable Research Weather & Disease Portal which includes a range of crop-specific disease models, including a model for stem rust, along with an innovative evapotranspiration tracking tool.

This portal also includes an 'aphid reproduction modelling tool' as part of an 'Aphid Chat' resource that help growers make decisions around aphid management and when to act to prevent damage to their crops.

Berries

MetWatch drives a new harvest planning tool used by The Fresh Berry Company. The tool combines weather data with berry-specific growing models for strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries to help the Fresh Berry Company plan planting and harvest times to ensure fruit hits store shelves when consumers most want it.

Grapes and Viticulture

MetWatch is used directly by many of New Zealand's leading wineries, offering disease risk models for botrytis, downy mildew and powdery mildew to support vineyard decision-making across the country's highly respected wine industry. The portal also includes a growing degree day calculator to make planning ahead easier.

For prospective vineyard buyers, MetWatch data helps power the Changing Climate: Disease Risk and Costs Tool. The tool supports orchard due diligence by enabling people to type in a vineyard's address to view the risk of grape powdery mildew and grape botrytis on their grape crop under different climate change scenarios.

Kiwifruit

MetWatch powers the Zespri Weather & Disease Portal which includes a range of crop-specific disease models, including an invaluable Psa disease model.

The portal includes a chill units calculator to help kiwifruit orchardists make vital calls around when to apply bud breakers to vines.

Onions

MetWatch forms the platform for the Onions New Zealand Weather & Disease Portal which includes a range of crop-specific disease models, including a downy mildew model and a Stemphylium indicator.

Plant Nurseries

MetWatch powers the New Zealand Plant Producers Incorporated (NZPPI) Weather & Disease Portal and includes a range of crop-specific disease models, including models for myrtle rust, black spot and downy mildew.

The portal was recently enhanced with the addition of optional weekly risk reports that can be generated and received by growers to provide information on current disease risk levels.

Summerfruit

MetWatch drives the Summerfruit New Zealand Weather & Disease Portal and includes a range of crop-specific disease models, including models for botrytis, leaf rust and brown rot.

Many summerfruit growers also use the portal's 'chill units' data to support decision-making around frost protection and when or if to apply dormancy breakers to their crops.

Vegetables

HortPlus is supporting Vegetables NZ on its integrated pest management journey. MetWatch powers the Vegetables New Zealand Weather & Disease Portal, which includes a range of crop-specific disease models, including a downy mildew model.

Scientific Community

MetWatch is used by Plant & Food Research scientists to visualise and view plant disease models for a wide variety of crops and provide a powerful platform for sharing of pest and disease models and research data in a user-friendly way.

Work with Plant & Food Research has also led to creation of a myrtle rust disease model and a stand-alone website, myrtlerust.com, which displays current myrtle rust risk across the country.

Data from MetWatch and HortPlus' network of on-orchard weather stations is also shared with New Zealand's national weather forecaster – MetService – to improve the quality of its forecasting and weather data.