Jan. 22, 2004

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OVERTON - East Texas agricultural producers and irrigators will soon have access to better weather data thanks to a new, upgraded automated weather station planned for the Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Overton.

The weather station data will help irrigators use water more efficiently. In East Texas, "irrigators" include home gardeners who typically overwater their lawns by 45 percent to 75 percent, said Todd Magatagan with the East Texas Irrigation Association.

The weather station upgrade will also allow East Texas to become part of the Texas Evapotranspiration Network, a part of the Texas A&M University System, that helps water users make informed choices about when and how much to irrigate.

The upgrade is made possible by a $6,800 grant from the Sabine River Authority. A five-year commitment and a $1,000 grant from the East Texas Irrigation Association was also instrumental in making the upgrade feasible, said Indre Pemberton, the Overton Center research associate responsible for maintaining weather data and making it available online.

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a measurement of the total amount of water needed to grow plants and crops. The ET network currently processes data from 28 scientific weather sites in Texas, but until the Overton Center data goes online, the closest sites to East Texas are in Irving and College Station.

"Availability of such data encourages efficient water use, reduces waste and saves producers and homeowners money," said Dr. Charles Long, resident director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at the Overton Center.

The rate of evapotranspiration is dependent upon several factors, including temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation. Evapotranspiration depends on the climate and varies dramatically from one locale to another. Weather data from Rusk County will be more relevant to growers in East Texas, Long said.

When the new station is up and running, home gardeners and professional irrigation managers will be able to use an on-line calculator to find exactly how much water they need to use on turfgrass, Magatagan noted.

Though there's no East Texas data yet on the Evapotranspiration Network Web site, there will be an online calculator in place for turfgrass and other crops based on local data, Pemberton noted.

Though the Sabine River Authority grant will allow Pemberton to upgrade the weather station, the Overton Center has been collecting daily rainfall, temperature and other weather data since 1968. In 1999, Pemberton began making this data accessible via the Internet.

Located at http://etweather.tamu.edu, the Internet site lists daily rainfall, maximum temperature, minimum temperature and average temperature. Pemberton has also made historical data from1968 available.

Pemberton expects the new weather station should be installed and operational by late spring or early summer. Weather data from the station will then be used to upgrade the http://etweather.tamu.edu site and made available on the Texas ET Network Web site at http://texaset.tamu.edu.

The Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Overton is one of 13 regional research and extension centers in the state. As with the other regional centers, the Overton Center serves many purposes. In its research role, the center is headquarters for seven Texas Agricultural Experiment Station scientists and their support staff. The center's main Web site can be found at http://overton.tamu.edu.

As an area office for Texas Cooperative Extension, the center is headquarters for 10 extension specialists, their support staff and county-based agents in surrounding counties.