(l to r) Jill Lyons, strategic facilitator, FBA; Rick Kowitz, state Landcare coordinator; Murray Melville, president CSFS; and Anna Keetels, executive officer, CHRRUP; inspecting the weather stations
Murray Melville, 'Milroy Downs', Gindie using his mobile phone to receive weather station information to help with his spraying decisions.
CHRRUP
Innovative weather scheme for cropping district
An innovative scheme initiated by Central Highlands farmers is attracting wide-spread interest and providing immediate benefits to farming practices.
The scheme to install a network of 13 fully automated, real time weather stations in the Comet cropping region has been completed, allowing farmers to use current information to optimise spraying and irrigating decisions.
Murray Melville, president of the Comet Sustainable Farming Systems group, hosted a visit from Rick Kowitz, state Landcare coordinator, to inspect the stations and talk about the advantages that the project has provided for the community.
Murray said, "Dryland farmers and irrigators in the Comet area worked with CHRRUP to apply for funding and develop the network. The aim of the project was to provide landholders, their staff and spray applicators with easily accessible, current weather information to help them make informed application decisions."
Murray said the weather stations have proved to be a very useful management tool.
"I can dial-up or text message to get the exact weather and temperature conditions during the day, and download the information for a permanent record. Supported by climatic modelling, the information is available for all landholders to help agronomic and environmental decision making."
This information can also be used as a main input into climate-based irrigation scheduling tools, or to monitor climate conditions in real-time to give advance warning on disease and insect outbreaks. Other uses for the information could be to drive crop simulation models in real-time, aiding in decision making on nutritional inputs, growth regulant inputs, pest threshold levels and yield goals.
Murray paid tribute to CHRRUP (Central Highlands Regional Resources Use Planning Cooperative) for their assistance in getting the project off the ground.
"CHRRUP did a really good job. They did most of the groundwork and followed up all of the hassles! Field days and workshops were also organized to provide technical advice, finalise sponsorship and group membership, and select appropriate sites for the weather stations," Murray said.
Anna Keetels, executive officer for CHRRUP, said, "The project has been a truly collaborative effort between CHRRUP, DPI&F Cropping Extension staff, IAWM, and the Comet Sustainable Farmers Association.
"These partnerships will be ongoing as IAWM and DPI&F collate the weather station data to identify trends in data and help farmers develop best management practices."
The data will also be integrated into research work on grains and cropping, and water use efficiency systems. Since the stations were connected last December, the popularity of the system has actually led to some interesting teething problems.
"The installation company, Hydrodata, has had to increase the size of the solar panels, because the usage rates are much higher than predicted," said Anna.
Rick Kowitz, state Landcare coordinator, was very impressed with the capabilities of the weather stations.
"As the project was funded by the National Landcare Program, I was keen to visit the area, and follow up on how the network was operating. We are now looking to include the project in a national case-study publication, so that other farming groups around the country can learn from the success of this Central Highlands scheme."
Back to the VoiceLast updated 05 April 2007