FIELDWATCH® WELCOMES TEXAS AS ITS 27TH STATE MEMBER
by Curt Hadley, Field Watch
FieldWatch, Inc., a non-profit company that promotes communication and stewardship among crop producers, beekeepers and pesticide applicators, announces that Texas has joined as the 27th member state.
Texas joins FieldWatch along with 26 other states, one Canadian province and the District of Columbia. The membership will enable Texas’ beekeepers (hobbyist and commercial) and crop producers (organic and conventional) to use a secure, easy-to-use online registry to identify and map the locations of apiaries and crop fields that pesticide applicators should avoid. The free and voluntary registries, DriftWatch™ and BeeCheck™, will be available to all Texas beekeepers and crop producers. FieldCheck® is the online and mobile portal that pesticide applicators can use to improve decision-making and avoid damage from spray drift to crops and beehives.
“The goal is to get beekeepers and crop producers registered through FieldWatch, so applicators can access accurate information before spraying,” said Bob Walters, President and CEO of FieldWatch. “This model has been proven to build stewardship and communication in agriculture.”
Texas’ membership decision was especially driven by the needs of crop producers and beekeepers who wanted to register the locations of their apiaries and crops.
Want to Get Started? It is very easy…..
Above you read the press release but now we need to get you registered and your fields mapped. I am the Texas FieldWatch Data Steward, and my job is to help you with this process and to approve your fields or beehives.
First, type in fieldwatch.com into your web browser. This will take you to a screen that looks like this.
You will want to click on the square called driftwatch (for producers). Once you click on that button you will be taken to the page below.
If you are a beekeeper and want to register your hives with beecheck then you will click below the “Map My Apiaries” and be taken to this page below.
If you are just registering your cropland then you will click below the “Map My Specialty Crops” and be taken to this page below.
No matter which direction you go, crops or bees, you will need to tell us which state – Texas. Then use your email address as a username or any other name you can remember, add in your email address and then a password and hit Sign Up. Once you hit the button then this screen will appear. I went the crop route in my example, but both are similar.
Once you register all your information and click Create Account you will get this notification.
This email below came to my Gmail account telling me to click here to complete the account creation. Also notice that my Texas A&M AgriLife email address is listed down below as the data steward for the FieldWatch program. At this point I am the person getting FieldWatch up and going in Texas and working with Curt Hadley at FieldWatch we will solve any issues you have with FieldWatch!
Once you click to complete you will be taken to this screen
Clicking on the “Go to the DriftWatch Map” takes you here. Click on Texas on the map to move to………
And finally to here. Take a minute or two to get familiar with the screen. This is pretty much what you see on Google Earth or Google Maps. Use your mouse to move around the map and you can scroll in or out for Zoom.
But this is what you are interested in clicking. “Submit New Site.”
When you click then this appears.
After you answer the questions on 3 different screens you will finally get to this screen below.
I zoomed in on the field that we have certified organic at the Stephenville Research and Extension Center on Hwy 281 in Stephenville and hit the blue button for Begin Tracing. I clicked on one corner then the next till I got back to the first corner and it completed the field. 3.88 acres! The C is for cotton.
I am done with registering my certified organic field and waiting on the Data Steward with Field Watch to approve my field. Because I am the Data Steward I logged out of my “fake account” and logged back in with my official Texas A&M AgriLife email and got this screen for the field I just mapped.
As Data Steward I approved the site and now here are the approved FieldWatch sites so far for all the world to see. This map shows that we have 2 bee sites approved and now one organic cotton site approved. Simple and easy! If you have any questions or concerns, just email me: bob.whitney@ag.tamu.edu
Texas A&M AgriLife Organic 