Watchful measures

STUARTS DRAFT — An electronic weather station on David Fitzgerald’s corn and soybean farm tracks monthly rainfall, temperatures, heat index and wind speed and direction.

The weather station is one of five installed on farms during the spring in different parts of Augusta County by the county’s Agriculture Industry Board.

The weather stations, which cost about $500 each, offer definitive computerized information during the current growing season for farms, said Brian Jones, the Virginia Cooperative Extension’s crop and soil science extension agent for Augusta County.

The growing season lasts from mid-March until November.

“If we can have a record of areas that are drought-stricken we can present that data to the governor and get a drought declaration to help farmers,’’ Jones said.

A sampling from the stations presented earlier this week to Augusta County supervisors shows that rainfall from Stuarts Draft to Middlebrook was heaviest in May, when Middlebrook led the way with nearly 8 inches.

June rainfall tapered off to a low of 1.4 inches in Verona.

Fitzgerald said the stations offer other useful information.

Temperature data on his farm can help Fitzgerald gauge about how long he needs to grow corn.

This summer’s cooler temperatures and lower humidity mean corn might take a week or more longer to fully grow, he said.

“The weather the last two to three months has been cool. It might mean it takes 128 days for 116-day corn to grow,’’ he said.

The average temperature in June on Fitzgerald’s farm was just under 71.

Fitzgerald said long-term wind speed data will also help him in deciding whether to employ wind turbine technology.

“If we can find enough wind we will look at alternative energy,’’ he said. He said an alternative energy source could be used underground to irrigate his farmland.

Jones said the hope is that the weather stations can last at least five years.