GrowNotes™ Alert - FAQ

GrowNotes™ Alert is a free national crop alert system for delivering urgent, actionable and economically important issues to YOU, the way YOU want… real-time information from experts across Australia, to help save billions of dollars annually and to help growers increase profitability. GrowNotes™ Alert  can help reduce disease, pest and weed costs by improving the relevance, reliability, speed and coverage of notifications concerning the incidence, prevalence and distribution of crop diseases, pests and weeds – as well as highlighting ‘healthy’ crops and areas to aid market access.

GrowNotes™ Alert is designed specifically for Australian grain growers and advisers/agronomists to ensure our primary producers are on the front foot when it comes to managing disease, pest and weed incursions. That said, we have numerous employees from other industry sectors interested in – and subscribed to – the system, from chemical suppliers to market access and aggregator staff, to media and education personnel and many more inbetween! GrowNotes™ Alert is free to subscribe to for anyone interested in or involved in our grains industry – so be sure to spread the word!

GrowNotes™ Alert is an electronic notification system regarding both exotic and endemic disease, pest and weed outbreaks. Alerts will be delivered to subscribers who have nominated specific crop(s) and/or area(s) affected – and only if the alert is urgent, actionable and economically important to grain growers.

GrowNotes™ Alert was pre-launched in June, 2016 to make people aware of the biosecurity issue around the outbreak of the exotic pest Russian wheat aphid (RWA). The fully fledged system was officially launched at the Birchip Cropping Group (BCG) Main Field Day in September, 2016.

Please visit https://grdc.com.au/grownotesalert or email us directly at: grownotesalert@ecodev.vic.gov.au.

GrowNotes™ Alert is co-invested by GRDC and Agriculture Victoria. Building upon GRDC’s existing GrowNotes™, GrowNotes™ Alert is managed and implemented by Agriculture Victoria. Dedicated communication is via our monitored email address: grownotesalert@ecodev.vic.gov.au.

You choose your preferred method(s) of receiving alerts – SMS, email or Web Portal, or a combination. The Apple (iOS) app is in-stores now, with an Android version almost store-ready. Three regional Twitter channels are now operational: @GNAlertNorth @GNAlertSouth and @GNAlertWest and all relevant regional alerts will be posted simultaneously to an alert being sent out.

Biosecurity alerts will be received by all subscribers, as many of the impacts of exotic (as opposed to endemic) diseases, pests and weeds are unknown.

An alert will inform you of the problem (disease, pest or weed) and the crop(s) affected, any specific action to take (i.e. monitor) and a live hyperlink to published management and identification information. It will also give you a link to the web portal to manage your subscription.

Technically yes, but you must use a unique email address for each subscription. We suggest setting up a specific subscription in your profile and then monitoring broader alerts to have a look over the fence at notifications for other locations or crops by using the search function in the subscriber website portal, where you can see all notifications. You can also use the GrowNotes™ Alert Twitter feeds to see all alerts by region.

The zones are based on the Regional Cropping Solution Network (RCSN) and Grower Solutions Group zones. The (former) Southern Region zones have been split to make targeted alerting possible. We talked to RCSN facilitators and to disease and pest experts to make sure it made sense to them too!

The sooner you register, the more familiar you will be with the system for upcoming cropping seasons – set your crop and location preferences and start managing issues in the timeliest manner, before they become unmanageable, helping you to minimise and mitigate any on-farm problems. Alerts are free and if you subscribe now you will also receive a FREE SUPER MACRO LENS to attach to your smart phone, helping you to identify and submit any problem disease, pest or weed – or submit to have unknown issues potentially identified for you! We’re all about two-way communication, and the more growers using the in-built surveillance, the more grower and industry driven the tool will become – so what are you waiting for?!

Three regional Twitter channels are now operational: @GNAlertNorth @GNAlertSouth and @GNAlertWest and all relevant regional alerts will be posted simultaneously to an alert being sent out.

No, you follow our Twitter handles as you would any other Twitter channel. We would prefer you subscribe as well, so that you can also submit surveillance.

GrowNotes™ Alert partners with many industry bodies, both at a federal and state level, including government institutions and private companies, as well as numerous agronomists and industry specialists. We use pathologists, entomologists and grains industry experts across Australia for surveillance submitted and also to sign off on endemic and exotic outbreaks and issues prior to sending out an alert. If you wish to partner with, or know of any opportunities suited to GrowNotes™ Alert, please contact us at: grownotesalert@ecodev.vic.gov.au directly.

All alerts can be viewed in your subscriber portal under the ‘All notifications’ tab in the top banner menu, as well as on our three dedicated Twitter channels: @GNAlertNorth @GNAlertSouth and @GNAlertWest.

Questions and requests for information can be sent at any time to our dedicated email address: grownotesalert@ecodev.vic.gov.au. This account is monitored daily.

You can manage your subscription and learn more about GrowNotes™ Alert at: https://grdc.com.au/grownotesalert. We will also include a link to the portal with each alert we send out.

Please send an email to grownotesalert@ecodev.vic.gov.au advising us of your full name, registered subscription email address and the best postal address for you, and we will pop one in the mail!

Go to the ‘submit surveillance’ option in the top banner menu of your subscription screen and you will be asked to confirm (or input) your location, crop information and other relevant information, and you can take or upload a photo to include – then press submit!

Go to the camera icon on the top right of your screen and you will be asked to confirm (or input) your location, crop information and other relevant information, and you can take or upload a photo to include – then press submit!

A user (subscriber) can upload the photo and surveillance report at a later time if out of communications range. The system will automatically locate a GPS position but the user can amend by manually entering a postcode if it differs from the automatic GPS discovery.

Many farm advisers and agronomists also subscribe to GrowNotes™ Alert, and by subscribing you are always on the front foot as one of the first to know about an issue – you may even learn about it before your adviser!

Forgotten password buttons are being implemented on the web portal and Apps. In the meantime, please contact us directly at: grownotesalert@ecodev.vic.gov.au with your full name and registered subscription email address, and we will get our technicians to send you a password reset email to the registered account.

Only new alerts will appear in your GrowNotes™ Alert App from the date you confirm your subscription and sign in – but in the top banner menu on the web portal you can view both ‘My notifications’ (which only appear post your first login) and ‘All notifications’, the latter showing every notification we have sent out to date. You can also see all notifications to date, by zones, by visiting our three regional Twitter handles: @GNAlertNorth @GNAlertSouth and @GNAlertWest.

Alerts are localised, with the 18 zones agreed to and determined by specialists. Users (subscribers) sign up to regions/zones they want to get alerts from and if an issue happens in their location and for the crop(s) they have subscribed to, an alert will be sent.

Generally no, it does not need to be open, but that will depend on the users’ settings when installing the app. Please ensure you enable notifications on your smart device to receive any relevant alerts you have signed up for.

Up to three devices can be registered by any one user.

There is a 10Mb file size limit. If you can’t downsize image, or send fewer images, then we’d love to receive them by email to grownotesalert@ecodev.vic.gov.au – but please still submit the surveillance report without a photo, for our records, and note the reference number you receive back from us when sending the photos separately.

The short answer is yes – the Android App, currently in development, will be suitable for all of your Android smart devices, including both your phone and tablet. The Apple App, however, whilst designed for your iPhone can also be downloaded onto your iPad using the following steps:

1. Go to your iPad ‘App Store’
2. In the top left-hand menu where it says ‘iPad Apps only’ use the dropdown menu to choose iPad & iPhone Apps
3. Search ‘GrowNotes™ Alert’

The GrowNotes™ Alert App will then appear and you can download to your tablet and use exactly as you would on your phone (the resolution suits both products)