COMPANY
SIZE 
SECTOR
METEO VISION DATA
1. Context
Cristal Union is a cooperative group and one of the leading producers of beet sugar and alcohol in Europe, bringing together more than 9,000 farmer-cooperators across France.
For several years, sugar beet crops have been increasingly affected by cercospora leaf spot, a fungal disease that can cause yield losses of 25 to 30% for farmers.
This disease thrives under specific weather conditions: warm temperatures (optimal between 19 and 26°C) and high humidity. As climate change intensifies, average temperatures rise, and periods of heavy rainfall become more frequent.
The result? Cristal Union is facing more frequent and intense cercospora outbreaks across all production areas.
2. Challenge
To help its members combat the disease, Cristal Union’s agronomy team launched its own cercospora development model in 2018, enabling farmers to act at the right time to control the risk of fungal spread: Cristal Cerc’OAD®.
To create a reliable and high-performance Decision Support Tool, the company relied on the results of 7 years of experimentation and data from its network of connected weather stations.
Graph legend:
🟪 Trigger threshold
🟩 Daily Cumulative Infectious Risks
“To feed our tool’s algorithms, we needed very precise weather data: geolocated at the plot level, reliable over time, and ideally requiring little or no maintenance. The problem with weather stations — beyond the initial investment — is the need for regular upkeep. That adds extra work and significant maintenance costs.”
Quentin Tilloy
Agronomic Manager at Cristal Union
3. Solution
Cristal Union ultimately chose Meteo Vision, Weenat’s spatialized weather data solution and the European leader in agricultural weather data.
The result? The cooperative successfully deployed the DST to its 9,000 members, with very low installation costs and zero maintenance.
“One of Meteo Vision’s advantages is that our members can geolocate their plots directly within their online portal: Cristalcoop.fr, which consolidates all their account information. They can easily access hyper-local data with a 1 km² resolution, allowing them to tailor the DST recommendations to real field conditions.“
Quentin Tilloy
Agronomic Manager at Cristal Union
The tool has been a hit: today, 1 in 2 members has adopted Cristal Cerc’OAD® in high-risk areas — covering more than 80,000 hectares of crops.
Even better: Cristal Union observed an average yield increase of 7 tonnes at 16° per hectare in trials using Cristal Cerc’OAD®.
“Beyond the yield gains, Cristal Cerc’OAD® saves us both time and efficiency. According to the IPM method, determining when to treat requires sampling 100 leaves and counting how many show symptoms. It’s time-consuming, and we often intervene too late when the disease is already established. “
Quentin Tilloy
Agronomic Manager at Cristal Union
The DST is offered free of charge to all Cristal Union members, giving them personalized support to optimize fungicide treatments, save time, and maximize yields.
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