Growers use every available means to get an accurate read, but as one grower says, "You take your chances, I guess."
At Crystal City, Manitoba, producer Garry Reimer spends 10 minutes every morning and evening checking online weather reports. Mike Wolff at Lindsay, Montana, checks into NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather on his two-way radio. Another Manitoba grower, Kevin Coubrough, near Portage la Prairie, checks into the Environment Canada weather site and likes his technology.
Newground: Where do you get your weather information?
Garry Reimer: I listen to the radio, mostly in the house. We have access to a station close to Langdon that’s an NOAA station that gives us weather reports 24 hours a day. It’s constantly going and comes in nice and clear. I also get information off the Internet.
Mike Wolff: I get weather mostly off a local radio station on my two-way radio. They’ve got NOAA weather that comes out of Glasgow about 150 miles away, but they also give local reports. It’s pretty good.
Kevin Coubrough: We get weather off the Internet. I check it just about every day. I also check the Environment Canada site and the Weather Network. We also listen to the radio. Actually, the elevator about 10 miles straight north has one of those Weather Bugs. We can access that online, too, and it gives us other aspects like wind speed, but for wind speed, we have those little hand-held devices.
Newground: Are you able to measure wind direction and speed with them?
Coubrough: Yes. It’s a little hand-held digital reader that you carry with you. It’s worked well for us; we’ve used it the last three years. When things are a little iffy, at least you can dial in and see exactly what the situation is with the wind. There are probably a dozen different makes.
Reimer: I rely on online weather reports from Accuweather, NOAA and National Weather Service from the States. We’re just eight miles from the border. If all three say the same thing, then it’s usually fairly reliable. And like most producers, I watch the sky.
Wolff: We’re in eastern Montana and usually half crop and half fallow. I don’t spend much time gathering weather information. I just listen to weather reports in the pickup while I’m driving down the road. Usually I’m doing something else.
Newground: What technology helps you keep farming when weather conditions are leaning toward adverse?
Coubrough: We have a windscreen on the sprayer. It’s pretty beat up now after 10 years. And we put up rain gauges. Our land is spread out in a 20-mile radius, so we probably have half a dozen rain gauges just to keep track of moisture. But as for predicting weather, it’s usually back to the old crystal ball. You take your chances, I guess.
Reimer: We’ve had a windscreen on our pull-type sprayer for at least 20 years. Now everything is protected. Seed goes from the air cart right into the ground. I can remember years ago when we sowed with a drill, we were sometimes concerned that wind would suck the canola out from the meter. There was a little gap from the meter to the downspout tube, and wind would blow it out of there. Now that’s totally enclosed; you don’t have to worry about it. On the combine, there are those swath or wind guards on the pickup that help protect the swath from the wind.
Wolff: We’ve got windscreens and Turbodrop® nozzles on the sprayer. We’ve used that combination since about 1992. It’s made a huge difference. When there’s wind, we can spray longer. I’ve sprayed in a 20 mph wind before with that set-up.
Newground: You don’t worry about drift?
Wolff: We do a little, but it’s not nearly as risky as it would be without the windscreen and Turbodrop nozzles. It also depends on where you’re spraying. If I’m spraying strips then I’ve got to be more careful.
Newground: How do you relate the forecast to your chemical applications?
Coubrough: We check rainfastness when we’re spraying and decide to spray or not accordingly. There’s always a chance of rainfall. Sometimes you take a risk, depending on the chemical. If it’s a fairly inexpensive chemical, maybe you can afford to take a chance, but if it’s relatively expensive, it’s not really worth the risk. Rainfastness has never been a problem. If anything, temperature in a cool year can present more of a problem. We use Everest® more for the rotation option than because it is rainfast.
Reimer: We wouldn’t make a last-minute decision on picking a chemical based on rainfastness – like picking up chemical in the morning, thinking it might rain later in the day, and I want to spray now. We wouldn’t usually do that. But when we make the herbicide selection earlier, before spraying season, then rainfastness is taken into account, for sure.
Newground: Do you read the label directions that come with your chemicals?
Reimer: Chemicals are quite an expense so, yes, we read the instructions. You don’t want adverse weather conditions to affect performance, which could mean the chemical doesn’t work.
Wolff: Most chemicals nowadays are pretty rainfast – like within an hour or half an hour – so that’s not as big a problem as it used to be. If it’s going to rain during the night, I won’t spray in the evening.
Coubrough: If we’re going to worry with chemicals, it’s probably more about how heat affects some chemicals. With Liberty® and chemicals like that you have to be careful. Sometimes they won’t work if the temperature isn’t warm – and others get a little too hot.
Reimer: If we’re worried about rain in spraying season, we can check the national radar satellite map, as well as the more local ones, and even get local radar from North Dakota that comes into our area. It easily covers our territory, and very often the rain comes from there. We’ll try to assess the speed of the storm. If the leading edge of the system or the rain has moved, say, 80 miles in two hours, we know it’s coming at us at 40 mph.
Newground: How has your use of weather knowledge changed?
Coubrough: I guess I probably pay more attention to it now than in the past. Even our tractors have weather stations in them that are like a weather station radio so we can tune into the weather any time we want on the tractor. If you’re doing something where weather is a concern, and you want an update right away, it’s right there.
Reimer: Watching the weather on the computer is just great. We’ve been doing it since 1995 – as soon as we had the Internet. It’s also a help trucking grain in the winter. We truck a lot of grain to Velva, North Dakota, which is close to Minot. We’ll check to see what the weather might be down there and whether there’s a chance of snow or a storm. We can also find out where the wind is from and what the temperature is. Accuweather will look 15 days ahead and try to predict it. The reports aren’t very reliable that far ahead, but it’s as good a guess as any, and it’s always interesting to see if they’re right.
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Growers use every available means to get an accurate read, but as one grower says, "You take your chances, I guess."
At Crystal City, Manitoba, producer Garry Reimer spends 10 minutes every morning and evening checking online weather reports. Mike Wolff at Lindsay, Montana, checks into NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather on his two-way radio. Another Manitoba grower, Kevin Coubrough, near Portage la Prairie, checks into the Environment Canada weather site and likes his technology.
Newground: Where do you get your weather information?
Garry Reimer: I listen to the radio, mostly in the house. We have access to a station close to Langdon that’s an NOAA station that gives us weather reports 24 hours a day. It’s constantly going and comes in nice and clear. I also get information off the Internet.
Mike Wolff: I get weather mostly off a local radio station on my two-way radio. They’ve got NOAA weather that comes out of Glasgow about 150 miles away, but they also give local reports. It’s pretty good.
Kevin Coubrough: We get weather off the Internet. I check it just about every day. I also check the Environment Canada site and the Weather Network. We also listen to the radio. Actually, the elevator about 10 miles straight north has one of those Weather Bugs. We can access that online, too, and it gives us other aspects like wind speed, but for wind speed, we have those little hand-held devices.
Newground: Are you able to measure wind direction and speed with them?
Coubrough: Yes. It’s a little hand-held digital reader that you carry with you. It’s worked well for us; we’ve used it the last three years. When things are a little iffy, at least you can dial in and see exactly what the situation is with the wind. There are probably a dozen different makes.
Reimer: I rely on online weather reports from Accuweather, NOAA and National Weather Service from the States. We’re just eight miles from the border. If all three say the same thing, then it’s usually fairly reliable. And like most producers, I watch the sky.
Wolff: We’re in eastern Montana and usually half crop and half fallow. I don’t spend much time gathering weather information. I just listen to weather reports in the pickup while I’m driving down the road. Usually I’m doing something else.
Newground: What technology helps you keep farming when weather conditions are leaning toward adverse?
Coubrough: We have a windscreen on the sprayer. It’s pretty beat up now after 10 years. And we put up rain gauges. Our land is spread out in a 20-mile radius, so we probably have half a dozen rain gauges just to keep track of moisture. But as for predicting weather, it’s usually back to the old crystal ball. You take your chances, I guess.
Reimer: We’ve had a windscreen on our pull-type sprayer for at least 20 years. Now everything is protected. Seed goes from the air cart right into the ground. I can remember years ago when we sowed with a drill, we were sometimes concerned that wind would suck the canola out from the meter. There was a little gap from the meter to the downspout tube, and wind would blow it out of there. Now that’s totally enclosed; you don’t have to worry about it. On the combine, there are those swath or wind guards on the pickup that help protect the swath from the wind.
Wolff: We’ve got windscreens and Turbodrop® nozzles on the sprayer. We’ve used that combination since about 1992. It’s made a huge difference. When there’s wind, we can spray longer. I’ve sprayed in a 20 mph wind before with that set-up.
Newground: You don’t worry about drift?
Wolff: We do a little, but it’s not nearly as risky as it would be without the windscreen and Turbodrop nozzles. It also depends on where you’re spraying. If I’m spraying strips then I’ve got to be more careful.
Newground: How do you relate the forecast to your chemical applications?
Coubrough: We check rainfastness when we’re spraying and decide to spray or not accordingly. There’s always a chance of rainfall. Sometimes you take a risk, depending on the chemical. If it’s a fairly inexpensive chemical, maybe you can afford to take a chance, but if it’s relatively expensive, it’s not really worth the risk. Rainfastness has never been a problem. If anything, temperature in a cool year can present more of a problem. We use Everest® more for the rotation option than because it is rainfast.
Reimer: We wouldn’t make a last-minute decision on picking a chemical based on rainfastness – like picking up chemical in the morning, thinking it might rain later in the day, and I want to spray now. We wouldn’t usually do that. But when we make the herbicide selection earlier, before spraying season, then rainfastness is taken into account, for sure.
Newground: Do you read the label directions that come with your chemicals?
Reimer: Chemicals are quite an expense so, yes, we read the instructions. You don’t want adverse weather conditions to affect performance, which could mean the chemical doesn’t work.
Wolff: Most chemicals nowadays are pretty rainfast – like within an hour or half an hour – so that’s not as big a problem as it used to be. If it’s going to rain during the night, I won’t spray in the evening.
Coubrough: If we’re going to worry with chemicals, it’s probably more about how heat affects some chemicals. With Liberty® and chemicals like that you have to be careful. Sometimes they won’t work if the temperature isn’t warm – and others get a little too hot.
Reimer: If we’re worried about rain in spraying season, we can check the national radar satellite map, as well as the more local ones, and even get local radar from North Dakota that comes into our area. It easily covers our territory, and very often the rain comes from there. We’ll try to assess the speed of the storm. If the leading edge of the system or the rain has moved, say, 80 miles in two hours, we know it’s coming at us at 40 mph.
Newground: How has your use of weather knowledge changed?
Coubrough: I guess I probably pay more attention to it now than in the past. Even our tractors have weather stations in them that are like a weather station radio so we can tune into the weather any time we want on the tractor. If you’re doing something where weather is a concern, and you want an update right away, it’s right there.
Reimer: Watching the weather on the computer is just great. We’ve been doing it since 1995 – as soon as we had the Internet. It’s also a help trucking grain in the winter. We truck a lot of grain to Velva, North Dakota, which is close to Minot. We’ll check to see what the weather might be down there and whether there’s a chance of snow or a storm. We can also find out where the wind is from and what the temperature is. Accuweather will look 15 days ahead and try to predict it. The reports aren’t very reliable that far ahead, but it’s as good a guess as any, and it’s always interesting to see if they’re right.
Back to Top Back to Table of ContentsWrite a comment
- Required fields are marked with *.