Beck’s Hybrids has introduced a novel service that provides rainfall data from individual fields on a daily basis by email. The service, available to growers in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa plus parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Kentucky, is called MyRainScout.com.

According to the company, the system uses patent-pending technology that includes Doppler radar data and proprietary algorithms, combined with a farmer’s field GPS coordinates, to record the precise amount of rainfall for a given location.

When customers sign-up for the service they choose the fields they want to have monitored and a 24-hour monitoring period. Then MyRainScout.com sends rainfall data from each of those locations to an email address within two-and-one-half hours after the monitoring period ends. Reports are only sent when one-tenth of an inch of rain or more is received during the 24-hour monitoring period.

Each site has a one-time setup fee of $10. Daily reports cost an additional $10 per month for each site. Monthly summary reports are also available for $10 per site. If you want both daily and monthly reports, they cost $15 per site. (You can also purchase just the monthly reports without the daily reports.) You can subscribe for any number of months. Some growers subscribe for the growing season and cancel in the fall. However, if you cancel, you will be charged a new  setup fee to receive the service the following growing season.

For more information, go to www.myrainscout.com or call 800-937-2325.