DEW IN PALESTINE

Abstract

AN account has been received from Mr. S. Duvdevani, of the Palestine Meteorological Service, of an optical method of estimation of dew which he has developed at the Dew Research Station, Pardess Hanna Agricultural School, Karkur, Palestine. The need was felt for a much quicker and less costly method than that of direct weighing of the dew collected on a standard surface, so that a network of voluntary observing stations could be organised for a country-wide study of the amount of dew in the different seasons. In a dry climate such as that of Palestine, the success of certain crops is largely dependent upon the amount of dew, and the justification for measurements with apparatus not likely to give a high degree of accuracy, in which the personal factor may be rather prominent, is obvious. Agriculturists clearly wish to know primarily where the regions of most abundant dew at the seasons when this is most important are to be found. They care comparatively little about small errors in the absolute values of the figures for the amount of dew.