Using Real-time Onsite Weather Data in Support of Freeze Protection of Florida Crops: A My Florida Farm Weather Update

Abstract

Weather-related information is essential to Florida’s agricultural producers for making important decisions regarding the use water for irrigation scheduling and cold protection. Since the mid 1990s, The Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN), a program of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), has developed a variety of weather-related tools that can aid them in making irrigation and cold protection decisions. In 2013, FAWN worked with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) Office of Agricultural Water Policy (OAWP) to establish My Florida Farm Weather (MFFW), a high-resolution farm based basic weather station network that can be used to maximize water used for irrigation and cold protection. Each MFFW weather station measures air and dew point temperatures, wind speed and direction, relative humidity, and rainfall amount. Data are collected every 15 minutes, and disseminated via a dedicated webpage and smartphone app. Data from the approximately 180 stations was recently integrated into FAWN̓s suite of cold protection tools. Now growers can view a four-day forecast, estimated overnight minimum temperature, a graph that compares actual vs. forecasted temperatures, evaporative cooling potential, and a safe shutoff temperature for a running irrigation system, all at a MFFW station location. The MFFW webpage can be accessed at http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu/mffw.