AgWeatherNet

AgWeatherNet. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The AgWeatherNet has come a long way in a fairly short amount of time and is a great tool for ag producers. Gerrit Hoogenboom, Director of AgWeatherNet give us some background.

HOOGENBOOM: AgWeatherNet actually started in the late 1980’s as PAWS to serve mainly the tree fruit growers in the Yakima Valley. In 2008, the weather network was rebuilt completely with state of the art equipment and state of the art communications technology and since then the network has expanded to about 138 stations.

The weather stations have expanded out of the Yakima Valley and Columbia Basin to include western and far eastern parts of the state.

HOOGENBOOM: The weather stations themselves, they’re equipped with a whole range of sensors which measure air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, solar radiation, soil temperature, rainfall and some stations record barometric pressure and leaf wetness.

The stations scan the weather conditions every 5 seconds and then it gives a weather summary every 15 minutes.

HOOGENBOOM: So as a grower/producer you can go to the website and actually see the current weather conditions as it was 15 minutes ago or the current weather conditions during the last couple of hours. When people try and make decisions they’re really not only interested in the current conditions but you really would like to know what’s happening in the near future during the next 24 to 48 hours.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.