This past spring over 50 Rainwise AgroMet weather stations were added to the NEWA network! This was a significant undertaking and included the weather stations added by our newest state member, Minnesota, via the Minnesota Apple Growers Association, and also via individual farmers in several states in the Eastern part of the US. Over the past seven years, NEWA’s growth has hit the exponential phase!
The number of weather stations in the NEWA network is now over 350. Exponential growth in weather station installations has occurred for the past seven years. A slight dip in station numbers in New York occurred following the NYS IPM Program’s funding crisis when modem lines had to be cut, but by 2012, NY numbers were back up.
Starting in 2010 when Vermont joined, NEWA continues to grow its network. In 2011, Massachusetts and New Jersey joined, followed by Pennsylvania in 2013, Connecticut in 2014, and Minnesota in 2015. NEWA is now a partnership of land grant universities in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont; along with Minnesota, courtesy of the Minnesota Apple Growers Association! A yearly fee of $1750 from each member state supports connecting to NEWA for anyone in that state.
Individual farmers can connect to NEWA in non-member states with a yearly fee of only $290! We have farms in Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin that have their weather station connected to NEWA.
NEWA is now active in 14 states in the US, with a couple more included with National Weather Service airport weather stations—each with a built-in correction factor for agricultural microclimates.
Let your friends and colleagues know about NEWA so they, too, can benefit from the IPM and crop production tools available. Tell them to contact me, Juliet Carroll, jec3@cornell.edu, for more information about joining NEWA to reap the benefits.
Benefits to NEWA Weather Station Network Members
- Access to all the IPM and crop tools on the NEWA website.
- Your NEWA Station Page with location-specific tools, maps, and reports.
- Weather data summaries (hourly, daily, DD, etc.)
- Technical support on installing and managing weather stations and networks.
- Technical support on methods for collecting and transmitting weather data.
- Automated “Data Outage” emails.
- Data flow / archiving / quality control in the NEWA NRCC database.
- Historical climate data.
- A website structure and platform to develop weather-based tools for precision agriculture.
NEWA’s IPM & Crop Production Tools
- Apple scab infection events
- Apple scab ascospore maturity
- Fire blight cougar blight
- Sooty blotch & flyspeck
- Obliquebanded leafroller
- Spotted tentiform leafminer
- Codling moth
- Plum curculio
- Oriental fruit moth
- Apple maggot
- Cornell apple irrigation model
- Apple carbohydrate thinning
- Apple frost risk
- Black rot of grapes
- Grapevine powdery mildew
- Phomopsis cane & leaf spot
- Grapevine downy mildew DMCast
- Grape berry moth
- Grape bud hardiness
- Cabbage maggot
- Tomato early blight TomCast
- Potato early blight
- Late blight BLITECAST
- Onion Botrytis blight
- Onion Alternaria blight
- Onion downy mildew
- Onion maggot
- Stewart’s wilt of sweet corn
- Alfalfa weevil
- Turfgrass diseases
- Soil temperature map
What farmers say about NEWA
A 2007 survey found that NEWA users in NY can save, on average, $19,500 per year in spray costs and prevent, on average, $264,000 per year in crop loss as a direct result of using NEWA IPM forecast tools.
“The orchard was largely “scab-free” for the first time in several years. The orchard manager depended heavily on NEWA and could see significant differences between the on-site station and the one we had been using.”
“I use the NEWA site almost every day early in the season.”