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Hi HN! I’m Damon, project engineer for the Mid North Mesonet and the Riverland and Mallee Mesonet in the state of South Australia. A mesonet is a term for a

Hi HN! I’m Damon, project engineer for the Mid North Mesonet and the Riverland and Mallee Mesonet in the state of South Australia. A mesonet is a term for a network of automated weather stations designed to monitor meteorological phenomena at high geographic density and updated frequently. We built these networks to help prevent pesticide spray drift - the phenomenon in which pesticide spray that is applied to a crop ends up drifting to other crops, sometimes many kilometres away. Spray drift can be a huge problem, as it can lead to damage or even destruction of highly valuable crops, and can also cause pollution to waterways and harm to native ecosystems. My father is a veteran meteorologist, and he has done extensive research into the weather conditions that cause spray drift. The biggest weather factor is thermal inversions, the phenomenon in which temperature increases with increasing altitude, which usually happens in the evening and overnight, but can happen at other times. Other meteorological phenomena also affect the likelihood of spray drift. So we designed a weather station to measure all the relevant meteorological phenomena, and in particular to detect thermal inversions. To read more info about the project’s background, the meteorology and the technical details of the weather stations, see this link: https://cotl.com.au/launch.html https://cotl.com.au/launch.html And the links to the actual mesonet web apps are: Mid North Mesonet: https://midnorthmesonet.com.au/ https://midnorthmesonet.com.au/ Riverland and Mallee Mesonet: https://riverlandmalleemesonet.com.au/ https://riverlandmalleemesonet.com.au/ I’ll be here to answer questions about the weather stations, and my father Warwick will also be around to answer questions about the meteorological aspects of the project.

shakna 6y ago
I see the pilot was deemed to be successful, though it might be too early to tell, so I assume you've put significant work it what I think is the biggest problem to solve in this space: The human problem. How do you manage to onboard many farmers, many of whom in Australia tend to be... Resistant... to new technology, into making use of your network to prevent damage to their neighbours downwind from them?
- Damon_Mesonet 6y ago
  Hi Shakna Both the pilot mesonet in the Mid North and the subsequent network in the Riverland Mallee were actually strongly supported by local growers. Many farmers are embracing the latest AgTech to farm more efficiently. A majority of pesticide sprays such as 2,4-D and glyphosate have label requirements that state they cannot be sprayed during an inversion. It is illegal to spray during an inversion and farmers must keep records of their spray times. Without the mesonet, spray applicators had no easy way to know if an inversion was present or not. Given inversions typically happen at night time, many growers adopted a method of not spraying from dusk until dawn. Now, with the mesonet data, they find that their ‘spray window’ is possibly different and may even open up more time for them to spray. Most farmers want to do the right thing, and now they have the real-time data to make informed decisions. Also, the public nature of the data display means that anyone spraying during an inversion will be noticed by their neighbours. This will hopefully lead to cultural change and practice change as the public data will make it highly awkward for ’cowboy’ growers in the community to flout the rules and claim ignorance. We also have all the historical records should the regulators ask for it if a spray drift event occurs.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
Thank you so much for doing this. It is a really helpful thing you're doing for the world. What crops would you say are most used in conjunction with the bad types of pesticides in South Australia?
- Damon_Mesonet 6y ago
  Hi Forgotmypw The crops in the regions covered by the mesonet include broadacre agricultural crops (typically wheat and other cereals, and canola, and pulses such as chick peas), vineyards, fruiting trees in the Riverland (i.e. almonds, oranges, stone fruits etc) and potatoes. Particularly the mix of crop types within a region can result in problematic spray drift. For example, summer spraying in broadacre farms to kill summer weeds can drift many kilometres into vineyards and greatly affect the broad-leafed grapevines just as they are starting to fruit. The typical herbicides used are glyphosate and 2,4-D. I don’t think these are ‘bad’ per se as they are a necessary part of modern agriculture. I think the ‘bad’ part is more to do with improper usage. This is everything from droplet size, volatisation, nozzle size, boom height as well as multiple weather factors. There have been numerous education and awareness campaigns about these things which have led to improved management. The missing piece of the puzzle was that although everyone knew inversions were bad for spraying (a big culprit for long-distance spray drift), no one knew when an inversion was happening. Our mesonet and website have now addressed this 
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Thank you for such a detailed response!

shakna 6y ago

I see the pilot was deemed to be successful, though it might be too early to tell, so I assume you've put significant work it what I think is the biggest problem to solve in this space: The human problem. How do you manage to onboard many farmers, many of whom in Australia tend to be... Resistant... to new technology, into making use of your network to prevent damage to their neighbours downwind from them?

Damon_Mesonet 6y ago
Hi Shakna Both the pilot mesonet in the Mid North and the subsequent network in the Riverland Mallee were actually strongly supported by local growers. Many farmers are embracing the latest AgTech to farm more efficiently. A majority of pesticide sprays such as 2,4-D and glyphosate have label requirements that state they cannot be sprayed during an inversion. It is illegal to spray during an inversion and farmers must keep records of their spray times. Without the mesonet, spray applicators had no easy way to know if an inversion was present or not. Given inversions typically happen at night time, many growers adopted a method of not spraying from dusk until dawn. Now, with the mesonet data, they find that their ‘spray window’ is possibly different and may even open up more time for them to spray. Most farmers want to do the right thing, and now they have the real-time data to make informed decisions. Also, the public nature of the data display means that anyone spraying during an inversion will be noticed by their neighbours. This will hopefully lead to cultural change and practice change as the public data will make it highly awkward for ’cowboy’ growers in the community to flout the rules and claim ignorance. We also have all the historical records should the regulators ask for it if a spray drift event occurs.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

Thank you so much for doing this. It is a really helpful thing you're doing for the world. What crops would you say are most used in conjunction with the bad types of pesticides in South Australia?

Damon_Mesonet 6y ago
Hi Forgotmypw The crops in the regions covered by the mesonet include broadacre agricultural crops (typically wheat and other cereals, and canola, and pulses such as chick peas), vineyards, fruiting trees in the Riverland (i.e. almonds, oranges, stone fruits etc) and potatoes. Particularly the mix of crop types within a region can result in problematic spray drift. For example, summer spraying in broadacre farms to kill summer weeds can drift many kilometres into vineyards and greatly affect the broad-leafed grapevines just as they are starting to fruit. The typical herbicides used are glyphosate and 2,4-D. I don’t think these are ‘bad’ per se as they are a necessary part of modern agriculture. I think the ‘bad’ part is more to do with improper usage. This is everything from droplet size, volatisation, nozzle size, boom height as well as multiple weather factors. There have been numerous education and awareness campaigns about these things which have led to improved management. The missing piece of the puzzle was that although everyone knew inversions were bad for spraying (a big culprit for long-distance spray drift), no one knew when an inversion was happening. Our mesonet and website have now addressed this 
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Thank you for such a detailed response!