A New Agricultural Weather Website for Atlantic Canada.

A new agricultural weather website for Atlantic Canada

Smith, E.^a, Audet, R.^b, and Hardin, R.^c

^aAgriculture & Agri-Food Canada, 361 Pictou Road, Truro, NS, Canada, B2N 2T6

^bAgriculture & Agri-Food Canada, 2560, boul. Hochelaga, Québec, Canada, G1V 2J3

^cAgriculture & Agri-Food Canada, 850 Lincoln Road, Box 20280, Fredericton, NB, Canada, E3B 4Z7

The variability in our climate has caused increased concern for producers in the Atlantic region.  Due to this it has become even more important for producers to be able to make informed decisions when it comes to on-farm management.  A new agricultural weather and climate website has been developed called AgWeather Atlantic (http://atl.agrometeo.org/).  This website provides producers and crop advisors in the region with more localized agricultural weather and climate data.  The network is constantly growing and presently has over 161 weather stations across the region.  The website provides producers with useful decision support tools to help them with business risk management.  Support tools include; bioclimatic models, an irrigation calculator, hay drying index, heat units, growing degree days, frost information, meteograms and a fertilizer optimization tool.  These tools will aid producers with their cropping decisions, irrigation scheduling, pesticide and fertilizer applications, soil erosion risks, as well as pest/disease/weed management.  Further expansion of these tools will benefit virtually all commodities farmed in the region now and those that will be introduced in the future. 

For more information please contact: Dr. Erin Smith, erin.smith@agr.gc.ca or (902) 896-2810.