Research Plot Weather Station Data

As promised in my last post, below is the results of the 2015 weather station data collected at the research plot site.  This station collects not only the temperature but also: leaf wetness, solar radiation, wind speed (and gusts) and relative humidity.  I showed the 2014 data as well for comparison.  The temperature data was included in the previous blog and not shown here.

2015 Data

Location: 107 Burton Main Road	Min	Max	Average
Relative Humidity (%)	16.9	100	82
Solar Radiation (Watts/m2)	0.6	1119	284
Wind Speed (m/s)	0.0	4.03	1.2
Wind Gust (m/s)	0.0	14.9	4.5
Leaf Wetness (%)	0.0	100	54

As a comparison, 2014 data is below

2014 Data

Location: 107 Burton Main Road	Min	Max	Average
Relative Humidity (%)	20.3	100	83
Solar Radiation (Watts/m2)	23	1171	514
Wind Speed (m/s)	0.0	2.27	0.9
Wind Gusts (m/s)	0.0	12.09	4.0
Leaf Wetness (%)	0.0	100	35

So what do we take from this?  We had a pretty hot and dry year and our Leaf Wetness (dew point essentially) increased because of this.  Why? Our RH is about the same as 2014, so that means the dew point is pretty close the actual temperature (at 100% RH the dew point and temperature are the same and looking at individual data points we had many many days at 100% RH).  In a nutshell, even in hot dry weather our vines are getting wet - leading to all the wonderful mildew problems.
The real take-away is how important it is too keep our vines tied up, our canopy nicely pruned and the excess leaves pulled to allow the breeze to aid in keeping things dry.  As we learnt last year, even a diligent spray program fails if the vine management is not kept up.

Solar Radiation?  I would have expected it to increase.  I thought I was starting to understand just a little bit about what solar radiation is, but not really sure why our overall average would be less, when our season was really quite warm on a day to day basis. Any smart climate folks out there able to explain??  I blame the darn wasps!

Looking forward to a new growing season.  Pruning work bee coming up Sunday March 6 at 9AM.  Stay tuned!