Helping landholders make smarter decisions

All twenty of the Limestone Coast Landscape Board’s Automatic Weather Stations are now 5G, providing increased mobile device and connection capacity, which is good news for landholders.

Primary producers are seeking as much localised information about the current weather conditions as they possibly can to make critical farming decisions.

Limestone Coast Landscape Board Manager Sustainable Landscapes Jason Taylor said timely farming decisions maximises the success of farming practices.

“Timely decisions about when to sow and harvest and apply chemical sprays and fertilisers are critical to productivity success,” Mr Taylor said. “Understanding the weather in real time aligns the use of resources, such as water, to sowing or planting, whether for crops or supporting revegetation and habitat corridor establishment.

“Equally, we can minimise our use of pesticides by ensuring they are effective at the time of spraying when it is least likely to rain.

“Reducing our impact on resources can maximise the efficiency of farming practices for productivity, the environment and long term sustainability of a primary production enterprise.”

The Automatic Weather Station Network gathers data from twenty sites across the Limestone Coast and includes rainfall, temperature, humidity, global solar radiation and wind speed and direction. Calculated indicators include dew point, apparent temperature, growing degree days, chill hours, frost, evapotranspiration, Delta-T, in-crop canopy temperature, and calculated minima, averages and maxima for most data sets.

The real time weather information is freely available for land managers and can be accessed at www.landscape.sa.gov.au/lc/land-and-farming/weather-stations

Image credit: Limestone Coast Landscape Board