I. Buy/Service Your On-farm Weather Station for Correct Tree Fruit Disease Model Predictions; II. Join Partnership on Using RIMpro Apple Scab and Fire Blight Prediction Models in 2023
I. Act Now: Purchase New or Service Your Existing Weather Station(s) Connected to NEWA Plant Disease Models for 2023 Season!
If your RainWise (now KestrelMet) weather station(s) have not have operated properly in 2022 as they had a faulty sensor for either leaf wetness, temperature or rain, it is time to service it. It is important to service your weather stations every five years and anytime when you doubt your data is correct or a malfunction occurs on the station. RainWise is now part of KestrelMet so if you have a RainWise station that hasn’t been serviced for last 5 years or is malfunctioning please contact KestrelMet technical support today at: (207) 801-4043, (207) 801 4036 or via e-mail address bluscombe@rainwise.com (Brad Luscombe, Manager Support, Sales, and Service). Your weather station’s temperature, leaf wettness and rain gauge sensor must be fully functional and accurate to give you accurate disease infection predictions. If this is not the case, you will get inaccurate tree disease infection predictions for scab, fire blight and Sooty Blotch and Flyspeck models that you should use to properly time your spray applications before infections occur. If you service your station now, it will save you money by omitting the unnecessary spray(s) when scab or fire blight infections do not occur early in the spring. If your station malfunctions in the middle of the apple scab season, we recommend that you can use the nearest functional NEWA station to you, but only until you fix the one you have on farm. Remember that we have a lot of variability in micro-climate and your neighbor’s station can get rain while you will not, so it pays big time to have your own station. To purchase a new weather station, use link KestrelMet or https://kestrelmet.com/agriculture-weather-stations. Please read the NEWA Maintenance Guide page for additional information before making your purchase.
The second option for purchasing, instead of KestrelMet station, is HOBO Onset Data Loggers. This weather station is also fully compatible with NEWA’s Crop & IPM Tools (Apple Scab, Fire Blight, and Sooty Blotch & Flyspeck disease prediction Models). The NEWA network does not accept data from other brands or custom-built weather stations as their accuracy might not meet your needs. To purchase a new HOBO Onset Data Logger station contact Matt Sharp, Strategic Sales Representative at 508 473 3126 or via e-mail address matt_sharp@onsetcomp.com. Please review the NEWA Maintenance Guide page for additional information before making your purchase.
Follow manufacturer guidelines for placement of your weather station to ensure accurate and unobstructed data collection. Also, read the NEWA Placement Guide page for tips on siting your weather station. Connect the weather station to your vendor’s server and verify your machine is successfully reporting. and KestrelMet uses KestrelNet (https://kestrelnet.net) and Onset Data Loggers uses HOBOlink (https://hobolink.com).
Yes, your station must be connected with NEWA after you place it on your farm
Connect your weather station to the NEWA network after linking with your vendor’s online platform. Contact the NEWA Help Desk to start this final step. Help Desk staff will confirm your request and generate a work ticket to onboard your new machine. You will receive final confirmation when your weather station has been added to NEWA. More info on capability of your weather station is available on the About Weather Stations Page.
II. RIMpro Partnership: Learn How to Use RIMpro Apple Scab and Fire Blight Prediction Models
Join a group of growers in Virginia who have used RIMpro prediction models for apple scab and fire blight infection(s) last year. RIMpro is a cloud based (online) cluster of many tree fruit and grape disease prediction models developed over the last 30 years by the European scientists and RIMpro B.V. company from France. RIMpro is subscription based: https://www.rimpro.eu/ As you can see on their website, if you click on the button “Pricing and Create Account”, one individual fruit or wine producer subscription costs $270 (250 Euros) per year. This allows one connected weather station (you can use a VISA or MasterCard to pay after you subscribe via PayPal or you can use an invoice that will be sent to you in a separate e-mail once you subscribe). An additional $270 (250 Euros) per year is charged for every extra weather station you wish to add to your RIMpro account.
Once you subscribe, you must connect your own or any nearby NEWA weather station to the RIMpro by paying a NEWA Data License ($50 per location) via this link here: https://blogs.cornell.edu/newa/rimpro-data-feeds/ This allows RIMpro to plug in your NEWA station weather data into the RIMpro disease prediciton models and to add the National Weather Service weather forecast of up to 10 days. This will enable you to see how the disease model prediction looks like for the future weather data i.e. forecast (keep in mind that we do not recommend relying on any weather forecast beyond 72 h as the forecasts can abruptly change). Individual subscription disease model data are your property and should not be shared with other people, unless you choose to be a member of a RIMpro user group that Dr. Acimovic will lead. That group is assembled for the purpose of learning how to interpret RIMpro models (the members of the group can see models from the other stations if they are in the group). The data from your station are your property and cannot shared publicly, except if you are in the above mentioned group. You can get the disease model interpretation for your station via phone or e-mail from your plant pathologist Srdjan Acimovic.
Any interested growers who want to participate in this group should contact Srdjan Acimovic on 540 232 6037 or 517 449 0905 to communicate that you wish to join this learning partnership after you subscribe to RIMpro by yourself. To connect to RIMpro you can use your own weather station (RainWise or HOBO) or select any neighbor’s NEWA weather station near you that you trust is showing accurate data to what you see on the ground. If you have any questions on the above steps OR to connect your station to RIMpro, please contact Srdjan Acimovic on 540 232 6037 or 517 449 0905.
To decide on joining this group, you can read more about the RIMpro models using the following links:
Introduction to RIMpro tree and grape disease prediction models
Two Years of Experience With Using RIMpro Article