A new investment in the prevention of spray drift will see 100 purpose-built weather stations established across the grain and cotton regions of NSW and QLD, including the majority of the Western Plains, helping to identify safe periods to spray. 

The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) are forming a partnership with Australian agtech company Goanna Ag to develop a spray drift hazardous weather warning system, alerting growers to the presence of temperature inversions. 

Although current regulations mean chemical spraying isn’t permitted when hazardous surface temperature inversions - increased air temperature that traps droplets in concentrated form and carries them significant distances from the target area - are present, there is little way for growers to identify or predict the conditions. 

The new network of Profiling Automatic Weather Stations (PAWS) will provide real-time weather data every 10 minutes, and a 24-hour forecast of hazardous temperature inversions periods.

Macquarie Cotton Growers' Association treasurer Amanda Thomas said that this information is crucial to avoiding the chemicals landing on unintended crops that are much more vulnerable.

"When it's not ideal spraying conditions two things happen. You're obviously not hitting the target because it's going up, and then when it comes down when the wind blows, that becomes a problem," she said.

With interruptions from temperature inversions being a common issue, having reliable information is an important investment.

The intended coverage of the PAWS network will see almost the entirety of the Western Plains covered, with the exception of Bourke, Brewarrina and Cobar LGAs.

GRDC Chair John Woods said the warning system could dramatically improve on-farm decision making.

“Until recently, there has been no reliable and accurate method to determine when inversion conditions are hazardous for agricultural spraying using real time data,” Mr Woods said. 

“These hazardous inversion conditions exist most nights of the year for undefined periods, so we need to have the ability to know exactly when they are occurring and stop spraying,” he said. 

Ms Thomas said that while their region has eight inversion towers to help with prediction, they've been problematic at the best of times.

"You have to log-in for the information, I think a new development could be a lot more user friendly," Ms Thomas said.

With better access to the information, Ms Thomas said, better spraying habits will naturally follow.

"When you can monitor those conditions and avoid spraying inversions, you eventually look at it enough to start seeing patterns where you know when the best spraying time it. Once you get the patterns, you can actually use it to get better results," she said.

The five-year partnership with Goanna Ag will see an investment of $5.5 million into the project.

CRDC Executive Director Dr Ian Taylor said that the threat of spray drift makes it a worthy investment. 

“A study conducted by AgEcon found that the warning system could help reduce the impact of spray drift onto sensitive crops, while also increasing chemical efficacy and improving labour and machinery productivity on farm,” Dr Taylor said. 

“In cotton alone, the warning system could help the industry avoid $40 million in losses and costs associated with spray drift over five years.”