03/24/06 Update on PAWS

Update on PAWS. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. For fruit growers, knowing weather conditions in early spring is crucial. It's a time of year that can either make or break the crop. Having access to the most current weather conditions is a major step in combating frost conditions. For years now, fruit growers have depended on PAWS. The Public Agricultural Weather System. It's a network of 60 weather stations statewide that provide near realtime weather data that is available online 24 hours a day. The project is part of the Washington State University and is funded by private and fund-raising efforts. Fran Pierce is the Director at the Center for Precision Agricultural Systems. PIERCE: In the 80's Exxon was accused and convicted of overcharging the American public to the tune of about 2 billion dollars. They were fined. That money was allocated to the states to be used for energy conservation projects. And so in the state of Washington they used that to develop weather networks in support of irrigation scheduling. Access to the PAWS data used to be by subscription only but is now available to the public. You must still register to gain access to the data. There are two PAWS web sites. While PAWS 1 consists of basic public weather information, PAWS 2 provides raw weather data. Recently the project has received funding to expand the network. PIERCE: We are in the process right now of expanding the network by 60 stations, more or less, depending on how the funding plays out as we do this. But we're expanding the network and it's basically doubling in size. For more information regarding PAWS, log on to www. frost.prosser.wsu.edu. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.