New smartphone app may help Ky. farmers deal with weather challenges

Kentucky farmers now have a new tool to help them cope with summertime weather conditions. The smartphone Ag weather app became available this spring.

University of Kentucky Agricultural Meteorologist Matt Dixon said the aim is always to minimize weather and climate surprises. He noted the new GPS oriented app can do just that with weather info and alerts. Dixon added a phase two app program may be up by the end of the year.

“Not only your standard temperature, precipitation, wind speed, so on so forth. But also things for agriculture like spraying conditions, heat stress, cold stress, drying conditions,” said Dixon.

Dixon said county by county climatological information will be included. So far, this growing season has been a mixed bag with a real wet May followed by an overly dry June in many areas.

May was warmer than usual, but also the sixth wettest May on record. That caused problems in many fields.

“This greatly delayed crops going into the ground this year. Some were even washed out. Some were just planted in less than ideal conditions. Looking at pastures, growth was good this year because of that wet May but getting a timely first cut was an issue,” said Dixon.

Dixon said then came along June and the faucet about shut off. He says the next few weeks will be a critical time for corn production. Dixon said he often remarks drought conditions can be just a few weeks away. And the ag meteorologist noted the Ohio River level is a bit low and that can lead to navigational problems on the Mississippi.

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