Even before El Nino put climate trends on the front pages, farmers were watching weather reports closely and making decisions accordingly. The center is a joint effort between the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and the Mississippi State University Extension Service.
Farmers are definitely interested in weather.
Our job is not predicting weather, but we can tell farmers what has happened and what that means to the crops. There also are links to weather forecasts on the site. Estess said the site helps growers after the loss of Stoneville's agricultural weather information provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Bart Freeland, the weather and Geographic Information System coordinator for the center, said one advantage of the MSU data sites is that they are located in agricultural settings. Farmers can review rainfall amounts, soil temperatures and heat unit information.