CORBANA-BANACLIMA A weather monitoring system to support the banana production in Costa Rica

Abstract

The Costa Rican banana industry is mainly located in the Caribbean basin, which gives good weather and soil conditions for intensive production for export purposes. However, as is characteristic of tropical zones during the year, occur considerable variation in climate that may cause a significant impact on production.A detailed knowledge of the behavior of the weather in real-time could help to optimize the weather forecasting, production control (best times for planting and harvesting), the development of forecast systems for diseases and pests, recommendations for pesticides application, provide information for scientific research and in the prevention of emergencies and natural disasters.The BANACLIMA Program specializes in the storage and management of 12 automatic meteorological station installed at banana plantations distributed along the Caribbean basin. The network makes use of a Mikrotic WiFi system for data transmission and internet. BANACLIMA will be able to relate environmental parameters like rain, wind, temperature and relative humidity, solar radiation, and leaf wetness to aspects of crop management like planting, irrigation, fertilization, disease, and banana production.The main objective of the BANACLIMA Program make this information available to banana producers and crop managers; in real-time, allowing a continuous monitoring of weather conditions in the major banana producing areas in the country. The real-time information is put on the website of CORBANA ( www.corbana.co.cr ), facilitating the use of the information for the producer and farms managers farms to optimize the input, such as, fertilizers, nematicides and fungicides to obtain greater economic and environmental benefits. Another tool of the BANACLIMA is the e-mail and SMS with weather forecast, alerts and warning of extreme weather events and GIS maps.The information available in BANACLIMA contributes with the national banana industry to optimize the cultural plantation management, reducing costs and increasing production by the use of the precision agriculture.