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A statewide computer network is

providing an early warning system for Alabama farmers.

Weather is a constant threat to Alabama's multi-million-dollar fruit, vegetable and nursery industries. But with the help of a new computerized forecasting system, the state's farmers and nurserymen can now keep on top of rapidly changing conditions that could spell disaster for their valuable crops.

Developed by the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service in cooperation with the Southeastern Agricultural Weather Center at Auburn University, the computerized system provides growers with accurate, up-tothe-minute weather forecasts through county Extension offices.

Alabama's fruit industry is worth more than $10 million a year and growing, while the commercial vegetable industry is worth more than $75 million a year, and production and sales of ornamentals tops $100 million annually. Lump those together and you're looking at staggering economic losses when growers are confronted with a major freeze or some other weather disaster.

"In the past," explains Arlie Powell, Extension horticulturist at Auburn, "growers provided limited protection for their fruit crops, if any at all. They

simply hoped for the best from Mother Nature. But after losing so many crops since 1980 as a result of bad weather, growers began looking for help."

That help has come in the way of timely weather forecasts.

The new service is able to rapidly process weather data provided by the Southeastern Agricultural Weather Center and make it available to farmers almost immediately, says Powell.

"County agents tap into our computer here at Auburn via the telephone," Powell says. "Using our weather information, agents can alert fruit growers and nurserymen as to when and for how many hours they'll need to protect their crops from freeze."

Though the year-old program essentially began as a freeze-alert service for fruit growers, Alabama nurserymen and commercial vegetable producers are also getting good mileage from the information.

County agents used the program during a mid-March freeze to tell strawberry growers when to turn their irrigation systems on and off to protect crops from freezing. Peach growers were also helped by the service, and several had heliocopters on standby in case the freeze got severe enough to have to protect crops from damage.

(Helicopters are used to reduce freeze damage to crops by hovering over them and keeping the air moving.) Some blueberry plantings in south Alabama were protected by using helicopters.

Commercial nurserymen have especially taken advantage of the service. Mobile County nurserymen were impressed enough with the weather alert program that they bought two tape recorders for the Mobile County Exten sian office so that the weather information could be recorded and made available to growers after the office closed.

Twenty to 30 county offices currently use the weather alert program on a regular basis, according to Powell, with an average of 10 to 15 counties calling daily during critical times.

The service isn't just useful for freeze warnings, though. The program also provides information about soil temperatures, rainfall, evaporation rates, leaf wetness, solar radiation, chilling hours and growing degree hours for fruits. Most of this data is useful throughout the year. "Usage seems to be steadily increasing," says Powell.

"Extension personnel both at the state and county levels, as well as Weather Service personnel, have all been great about working after hours and on weekends to keep the program operating to best serve the needs of our clientele," says the Extension specialist.

Powell says he hit upon the idea for the program while he was at the Auburn offices of the National Weather Service gathering data on chill hours for peaches. "I was amazed at the extent of available weather data," he says. "The problem, though, was getting it to the public quickly and accurately.

"Once we had computers in all the counties, it was simply a matter of developing the program and deciding how best to operate it," Powell adds.

Roger Getz and Karl Harker of the Weather Service, and Ralph Teague and Jay Whitman of the Extension staff at Auburn worked together in developing the program.

Powell says he has discussed the program with growers and others in several states, including Colorado, Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee. He is currently helping the Agricultural Weather Service Center develop pilot agricultural weather programs for possi ble use in two other Southeastern

states.

Jeter 39

NOXSO Flue Gas Process. In continued cooperation with industry to find promising methods for cleaner coal-burning technologies. PETC agreed with the NOXSO Corporation, Library. Pennsylvania. to test a process developed by NOXSO to simultaneously remove sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxides from flue gases. NOXSO's process differs from the PETC-developed copper-oxide process in that the NOXSO process does not require the injection of ammonia to reduce nitrogen oxides and operates at a lower temperature. The NOXSO process uses aluminum oxide sorbent pellets coated with sodium compounds to absorb the gases.

NOXSO scientists had successfully performed small-scale tests of their process on high-sulfur (2.5 percent) coal. Under agreement with the Department of Energy. NOXSO and PETC designed. built and operated a developmental unit (scale equivalent to 0.75 megawatt electric) at PETC. Results have shown that 90 percent of the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides present in the flue gas can simultaneously be removed and the sorbent can be regenerated with methane, which removes the sulfur.

DOE is building an integrated lifecycle test unit at PETC that will run continuously for a minimum of 300 cycles to test both the

chemical and physical life of the NOXSO sorbent

Patent rights to the NOXSO process are held by the NOXSO Corporation, which recently entered into an agreement with W. R. Grace Company. New York, New York. which will help fund further development of the process.

Flue Gas