WayBeyond announced the launch of GrowPilot, an advanced AI agronomy app designed to help farmers anticipate and respond faster to climate-driven crop risks. 

With predictive alerts sourced from billions of weather data points, the GrowPilot app provides early warning for strong winds, heavy rainfall, and plant stress. This insight lets farmers take timely action to protect yield and reduce losses.

GrowPilot’s weather insights are sourced from low-Earth orbit satellites and enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI). This gives farmers local predictions tailored to their exact location rather than broad regional forecasts. 

Irrigation insights: Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) forecasts and crop water demand models to predict irrigation needs accurately.

Hourly forecast: Hourly localised weather forecasts for temperature, rainfall, wind and Vapour Pressure Deficit (VPD) for up to 48 hours in advance.

Weekly outlook: A seven-day outlook enables advanced planning for optimal crop management.

“The GrowPilot app isn’t just giving a forecast — it’s giving farmers a heads-up they can act on before problems escalate,” said Dr Mpatisi Moyo, Head of Artificial Intelligence at WayBeyond.

Climate volatility is making it increasingly difficult for farmers to protect their crops. Weather-related disasters destroy more than $120 billion worth of agricultural output each year, and as these events become more frequent and less predictable, the risk of crop loss rises with every season. 

The GrowPilot app provides farmers with early warnings that can reduce these risks and strengthen resilience.

“GrowPilot warned us of a spike in temperature two days before that stressor hit our crops. This gave us time to protect our berries from heat stress,” said the owner of BearBerry, a grower in Northern Morocco.

The GrowPilot app gives growers the power of an agronomist, allowing them to see what’s coming before it impacts their crops. It turns unpredictable weather into an opportunity for proactive crop management, putting control back in the growers’ hands.

“While large commercial growers often have dedicated agronomists who analyze crop health and recommend actions, most farms in the US and Mexico are small-scale, where the owner or head grower manages day-to-day crop decisions along with balancing all of their other responsibilities on the farm, said Darryn Keiller, Founder and Chief Executive, WayBeyond.

“GrowPilot is the industry's first AI agronomy app that proactively provides crop risk alerts and localized weather forecasts for the small to medium-sized grower,” said Keiller. “This makes it easy for these growers to take the right actions at the right time to optimize their crops."          

The GrowPilot app is built on the success of WayBeyond’s messaging service of the same name, launched in 2024. This service delivered daily local weather and irrigation forecasts via WhatsApp to growers in more than 28 countries.