Newspaper Article 1994 – Hort Research to keep weather station going

Hort Research to keep weather station going

By Geoff Mercer
Staff reporter, Hastings

Hort Research has agreed to buy the MetService weather station at Havelock North.

Hort Research scientist Dr Jim Walker yesterday said the Crown research institute had agreed to maintain the weather station when MetService stopped using it from May 23.

It would be connected to Hort Research’s Orchard 2000 disease monitoring network of weather stations, he said.

Last week Metservice data collection manager Tony Quayle said a review of the service’s weather station network showed observations from the Goddard Lane site were not needed and that it would be closed.

Dr Walker said Hort Research recognised that the station was important to horticulturists in Hawke’s Bay and to its own science programmes. It had decided to ensure the 47-year history of climate recording carried out at the Goddard Lane site was maintained.

There might be a period when manual recording was required during the station’s transition from MetService to Hort Research control. Hort Research would install a data logger at the station that linked it to a computer.

While the Orchard 2000 network provided maximum and minimum temperatures, a measure of leaf wetness, and rainfall, the Goddard Lane MetService station’s capabilities provided much more detail, Dr Walker said.

Soil temperature readings at different levels, grass minimum temperatures, and wind run and direction readings were examples. Hort Research relied on the MetService station to calculate plant moisture loss (evapotranspiration) readings.

It would cost $8000 to connect the weather station to Hort Research, with annual operating costs of $5000 to $6000 a year, he said.