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  • Author or Editor: Albert Sutherland x
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The American Horticulture Society (AHS) Heat Zone categories have been developed to categorize ornamental plant adaptability to different air temperature climates. These zones, like the Plant Hardiness map showing plant cold hardiness zones within the United States, are primarily north to south zones. Within the Great Plains region of the United States, the AHS Heat Zone categories provide a basic level of plant adaptability to air temperature, but do not account for plant reaction to variations in wind, relative humidity or sunlight. Daily reference evapotranspiration provides a single number that responds to variations in air temperature, wind, relative humidity and sunlight. In Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Mesonet provides a uniform statewide network of weather monitor towers that can be used to accurately calculate both short and tall American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) reference evapotranspiration (ref ET) across the entire state. Accumulated daily ref ET values can be used to provide further refinement in categorizing ornamental plant adaptability.

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Weather-based disease advisories have allowed vegetable producers to optimize their fungicide applications. These models typically use only past weather data to identify times of potential disease outbreak. The Oklahoma Mesonet has developed a new Spinach White Rust Advisory that improves grower disease decision support by combining forecast, current, and past weather data in calculating infection periods. The decision-support component issues initial spray advisories, based on infection hour accumulation from the first true-leaf stage or from a previous fungicide application date for subsequent sprays. The advancement in this model in relation to traditional weather-based disease advisories are: incorporation of an 84-hour forecast, hourly model recalculation, cultural practice customization, user site selection from any of 110+ statewide sites, and immediate access to detailed historical data. The model is available on the Oklahoma Mesonet AgWeather website (http://agweather.mesonet.org).

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