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 to the TAFCO Cropx/GreenBrain online platform, run two on-farm launch events and two post-installation evaluation webinars.
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.