Evening the odds with Mother Nature
About 20 people grinned for the camera as they posed in front of a flagpole-like structure located just off a muddy dirt road in Kampong Chhnang province’s Samaki Meanchey district on Thursday morning.
While a rather unimpressive visual, the agrometerological station is a first-of-its-kind device in Cambodia that provides data which could give small-time farmers in Kampong Chhnang a serious edge over Mother Nature.
After taking a look at the approximately $2,500 assemblage of sensors, thermometers and other tools, officials from the provincial Ministry of Water Management and Meteorology and others gathered inside the ministry’s narrow building. They chattered and cocked their heads toward the PowerPoint presentation that the husband and wife team of Krisanadej and Mullica Jarounstvtasinee – both professors at Thailand’s Walailak University – gave on how to collate data from the installation. …
In addition to collecting data on soil moisture at different levels of the earth – sensors sit at 25cm, 50cm, 75cm and 1 metre below the surface – the agrometerological station compiles statistics including pressure, temperature and total rainfall, Krisanadej Jarounstvtasinee, a physics professor, said.
For decades, farmers and vineyard owners in the United States have used the same equipment manufactured by San Francisco-based Davis Instruments Corp to monitor their crops’ health and determine how much they should water their soil, Krisanadej said. The technology first reached Southeast Asia less than 10 years ago in 2006, when private companies in Thailand began using it. …
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/evening-odds-mother-nature
