NOTES Guyana Rice Development Board Burma Rice Research Station Department of Entomology meteorological station Guyana Rice Development Board in collaboration with Hydrometerological Service Ministry of Agriculture Meteorological Instruments and its purpose at RRS, Burma A weather station is a facility, either on 4. An anemometer 2. The Stevenson screen land or sea, with instruments and equip- An anemometer is ment for measuring atmospheric condi- This screen tions to provide information for weather is enclosure to an instrument that forecasts and to study the weather and shield meteor- meas ures wind climate. The measurements taken include ological in- speed. The ane- temperature, barometric pressure, humidi- mometer has three ty, wind speed, wind direction, and pre- strume n t s or four cups at- cipitation amounts. Weather plays an im- against pre- portant role in agricultural production. It cipitation and tached to horizontal has a profound influence on crop growth, direct heat arms. The arms are development and yields; on the incidence radiation from attached to a vertical rod. As the wind blows, the of pests and diseases; on water needs; and cups rotate, making the rod spin. The stronger on fertilizer requirements. the outside, while still al- the wind blows, the faster the rod spins. The lowing air to anemometer counts the number of rotations, or Instruments found at the weather station circulate freely around them. It forms part of a turns, which is used to calculate wind speed. are: standard weather station. This Stevenson 1. Sunshine recorder screen holds thermometers of varying kinds, 5. Soil thermometers A sunshine namely, ordinary, maximum/minimum and wet/dry. recorder is a device that 3. Rain gauge records the amount of A rain guage is an instru- s u n s h i n e ment used to measure pre- There are four soil thermometers which are hours per day cipitation or amount of placed at 5, 10, 20 and 30cm below the surface at a given location. The results provide rainfall for a certain period of the soil. These are used to measure the tem- information about the weather and cli- of time. It is usually meas- perature of the soil at the varying depths. It is ured in millimetres. mate for that geographical area. The r e - important because soil temperature affects plant corder requires a human observer to inter- growth and influences soil organisms, moisture pret the results. content, aeration and availability of plant nutri- ents. .