New weather stations support climate smart farming

We've secured grant funding through the North East Catchment Management Authority’s Climate Smart Agriculture Program to establish two new weather stations as an extension of the TAFCO Online Weather Station Network.

The stations will be strategically located in Stanley's horticultural district and Everton Upper in the Beechworth Wine Region, filling important gaps in weather data coverage for these key agricultural areas.

These state-of-the-art weather stations will provide real-time data and micro-forecasting to help local farmers make better daily operational decisions, improve farm efficiency, and manage risks more effectively.

Importantly, all weather data will be freely available to the public, businesses, government agencies, and emergency services, making them valuable assets during extreme weather events and bushfire situations.

This initiative is especially important given the mixed topography of the Indigo region and its varying micro-climates.  Farmers in the cluster areas will have remote access to detailed weather data to inform and improve their daily operational decision-making, farm efficiency and risk management.  Historic data can also be accessed to inform future farm and seasonal planning.

The grant funding will fully fund the installation of two strategically located weather stations (including 80cm soil probes) linked the TAFCO Cropx/GreenBrain online platform, run two onsite launch on-farm events and two post-installation evaluation webinars.  

Stanley Launch event

The launch of the Stanley weather station will be held in partnership with Chestnuts Australian as part of their Industry Congress on Sunday 14 September 2025 onsite at Thompsons Chestnuts, O'Neill Rd, Stanley.  The second weather station will be installed in the Everton Upper area later in October with an associated on-farm launch event.

Register to attend the launch

Indigo Shire Council will join the Rural City of Wangaratta and Alpine Shire Council, and other partners – AgriFutures Australia, North East Catchment Management Authority and industry groups to support the longevity and ongoing management of this innovative program.   

This project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Natural Heritage Trust under the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program and delivered for North East CMA.