THE DEPARTMENT OF Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) is playing an important part in Western Australia’s agtech growth.

Agricultural technology, or agtech, is increasing its profile, relevance, availability and accessibility within the industry every year.

DPIRD has a suite of agtech tools, including its well-utilised suite of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). These include the Organism, Science, Soils, PestFax Map, Radar and Weather APIs.

Have you ever wondered what an API is? In general terms, an API is a technology tool that allows two different online applications to exchange data and interact for improved functionality.

The department’s APIs are specifically used to determine potential yield, soil information, provide weather data and more.

Weather Website

The DPIRD Weather Website, or weather app, which replaced the former version in 2018, is another key DPIRD agtech tool. It provides producers, industry representatives and other stakeholders with precise data, sometimes down to paddock-level, and importantly realtime weather.

Are you wondering what paddock-level weather data is? Basically, with this site, local users are able to access detailed online weather information from their nearest town — sometimes even from as close as the nearest paddock — rather than accessing weather data from a town that is many kilometres away.

What is real-time weather? Well, essentially real-time weather equates to the ‘weather now’. To achieve that, the DPIRD Weather Website provides regular updates (with some only fiveminutes apart), which allows users to see the most up-to-date weather on their phones, screens, or tablets.

MyPestGuide ®

DPIRD’s MyPestGuide® family of apps, which includes a MyPestGuide® Reporter app developed by DPIRD staff in collaboration with ngperceptive in 2017, are key agtech tools for exotic insect pest surveillance.

These are particularly used for biosecurity and early detection of pests. They also allow users to get information about any pests they find anywhere — in their gardens, backyard sheds, the orchard, or the farm paddock — in a timely manner.

The MyPestGuide® Reporter app is the tool used for DPIRD’s biosecurity ‘blitzes’. This includes the Pantry Blitz, which sees participants place traps in their pantry cupboards to ascertain what pests are in there, providing the opportunity for early detection of exotic pests.

Biosecurity Blitz

There is also the 2022 TREEmendous Biosecurity Blitz, which is a month-long campaign aimed at encouraging everyone to look for and report as many tree pests and disease symptoms or damage as possible. The TREEmendous Biosecurity Blitz starts soon and will take place between 24 September and 24 October. For enquiries, email mypestguide@dpird.wa.gov.au

PestFacts WA Reporter

The PestFacts WA Reporter app is another reporting tool that was created specifically for producers to report and request identification, via department experts, of pests and diseases foundin crops, vineyards, horticultural areas and pasture paddocks.

To learn more about the exotic pests (essentially, introduced species that do not naturally occur in WA) that pose the greatest threat, visit our Priority hitchhiking pests for WA webpage, and download the Biosecurity advice document for information on Federal and State Government responsibilities and contact details.

Become part of WA’s pest monitoring and surveillance community and support local biosecurity today!