FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2015
NIWA’s Fieldays stand a winner
NIWA’s Fieldays team is today basking in the glory of winning the Best Indoor Agribusiness Site awarded by the National
Agricultural Fieldays organisation for the 2015 event.
Dr Mark Bojesen-Trepla, NIWA’s manager of marketing and industry engagement, said the win was a great endorsement for
the team who had worked extremely hard to put together a space that would be eye-catching and relevant to farmers.
“We are delighted our efforts have been formally recognised but are also looking forward to meeting more farmers during
the rest of Fieldays and showing them how we can help.”
The NIWA stand in this year’s Fieldays Premier Feature section, comprises a working weather station, irrigation booms
and multiple screens showing NIWA’s latest web-based tool called IriiMet, that helps farmers decide when to irrigate.
Scientists have been demonstrating IrriMet and signing up farmers to test the tool to ensure they find it as practical
and easy to use as possible.
IrriMet follows the successful launch of FarmMet at last year’s Fieldays.
FarmMet is a tailored weather forecasting tool that provides accurate up-to-date forecasts specific to individual
properties. It works by capturing data from climate stations closest to an individual farm and using that to tailor a
forecast to farmers delivered straight to their computer.
IrriMet also taps into this same data which is fed in real time to NIWA’s supercomputer, combined with high-resolution
weather forecasting and soil information to generate a six-day forecast of soil moisture and leaching potential.
There are more than 1000 exhibitors on the 113ha site and more than 100,000 visitors expected over its four-day
duration.
NIWA is also the official Fieldays’ weather forecaster.
ends