WeatherFarm™

Guy Ash - Weather Network Manager, The Canadian Wheat Board

Guy Ash conceived and leads the Canadian Wheat Board's WeatherFarm™ project - a weather monitoring and crop management system supported by the largest weather station network in western Canada.

Ash first began analyzing weather and crop production for the CWB in 2001.  As the first agrometeorologist for the Province of Manitoba, he established the Agrometeorological Centre of Excellence and worked on fusarium and sclerotinia modeling and irrigation scheduling.

He holds a Masters degree in Soil Science-Geography from the University of Manitoba and has also worked as a researcher and lecturer for the Centre for Earth Observation Science.

WeatherFarm™

WeatherFarm™, the Canadian Wheat Board's free online weather and crop-management information centre, is designed exclusively for Prairie farmers.  It provides highly localized, real-time data.

Climate-sensitive groups such as producers and agricultural retailers are faced with many crop and farm management challenges.  Traditional sources of weather information are seldom local nor timely, and are increasingly unreliable.  Compounding the problem is the fact that meteorological data has generally not been integrated into decision-support tools that producers and agricultural retailers can use.  This reality has major implications for the agricultural sector.

In partnership with WeatherBug™ , the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) launched its WeatherFarm™ project in 2009.  WeatherFarm™ is a free online information centre designed exclusively for Prairie farmers, providing highly localized, real-time weather and crop-management information.  It is supported by the largest and most comprehensive weather station network in western Canada, with over 750 farm-based weather stations across the western Prairies.  Since its launch in December 2009, the Web site has attracted more than 9,000 registered users.  Spearheaded by the CWB and funded through advertising and sponsorship revenue from leading industry companies and associations, WeatherFarm™ is on the cutting edge of science-based farming.

The presentation will illustrate how WeatherFarm's innovative crop-management tools can help farmers yield higher quality crops, make objective logistical decisions, increase product efficiancy and improve environmental stewardship practices.  These tools include, but are not limited to, real-time agronomic maps displaying growing degree days, freeze severity and winter cereal survival indicators.  In addition to these features, soil fertility and pest-management tools such as modelling maps for fusarium, wheat midge, sclerotinia and grasshoppers are also available.  They will continuously evolve as improvements are made to the system.