The recurrent and sudden storms with hail make it difficult to avoid damage in cities and crop areas.
Conicet scientists doubt the effectiveness of the use of "anti-hail" planes and cannons.
And they warn about the environmental impact that this method can cause.
Mendoza alone
has had this system for 40 years
, under the protection of a provincial law.
In other productive areas of the Pampa Húmeda, producers from San Juan, San Luis, La Rioja and Córdoba complain because they claim that
they prevent rain
and aggravate the drought situation.
Anti-hail planes drop silver iodide flares into storm clouds.
This allows
the size of hail to be reduced
, and mitigate the damage it can cause in populated and productive areas.
Injections of this chemical are carried out through cannons and flares that operate from the ground or by air with special planes.
In the fight against hail in Mendoza, there are 27 pilots (24 in flight and 3 in ground operations) who work for AEMSA, a company with state participation that is in charge of protecting crops.
One of the planes used to fight hail in Mendoza.
In February, there were at least
six sowing flights
for twelve hours to deal with the storms that affected various locations in the Cuyo province.
However, it was not enough to prevent damage to cultivated areas.
In a fierce storm with hail, on February 28, nearly 12 thousand hectares of vineyards, olive trees and vegetables in the northeast of the province were lost.
The municipalities most affected were Maipú and Lavalle.
On farms in the town of Fray Luis Beltrán, there was
80% damage to vineyards
, olive trees, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and corn.
In Lavalle, the towns of Las Violetas and Paramillos, had losses of 80% in grapes, melons, eggplants, tomatoes and peppers.
In the surrounding districts, damage reached
between 30 and 50%
of production.
How the anti-hail system works
The system covers some
350 thousand hectares implemented
.
All aircraft operations are recorded and from the Mendoza Climate Contingencies page you can see how the clouds are seeded (www.mendoza.gov.ar/contingencias/lucha-antigranizo/).
In Mendoza there are
two types of seeding with airplanes
: a preventive one, at the cloud base that is carried out at about 10 thousand feet or three thousand meters, through the combustion of the flares attached to the wings of the airplane;
and others with direct or butt injection, at about
21 thousand feet high or seven thousand meters
, and the cartridges are launched downwards.
There are also fixed terrestrial silver iodide diffusers, in mountainous areas of the Uco Valley and the southern province.
Voices against
In a 2020 report, the Regional Meteorology Program (PRM) of Conicet Mendoza stated that the Anti-Hail Fighting System of the Government of Mendoza is useless, because its effectiveness is not proven.
"Documented trends indicate that hail suppression activities in Mendoza
do not influence the frequency of hail events
, while there is no scientific evidence to support a decrease in hail size," according to the Conicet study.
Juan Rivera, doctor in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences of the Conicet Regional Meteorology Program, explained that the generation of hail or increasingly severe storms can be attributed to global warming.
"The climate system has more energy available as it has more temperature and this is how these phenomena are generated," he said.
The scientist assured that the system that uses planes and flares to combat storms has been left aside around the world.
And after so many years of research (there have been trials since 1949), the fight against hail with planes and flares has already completed its cycle.
"The Government of Mendoza should bet on other options to protect crops," argues Rivera.
And he considers that the most effective thing is to install anti-hail mesh.
From the livestock farming groups, there are questions about the anti-hail system.
“The last heat wave has occurred in a context of a field
completely deteriorated
by drought.
One of the saddest seasons that I have known in terms of low productivity and high animal mortality," said Diego Montón, secretary of the advisory council of the Federation of Peasant Cooperatives and Family Agriculture (Fecocaf).
The rural delegate added: "From the dryland communities it has been reported for a long time, in terms of a perception that every time the anti-hail planes appear, the storms dissipate."
The
Ministry of Production and Agriculture of Mendoza
showed its statistical basis to ratify why they continue with this anti-hail system.
"Combating the storms with airplanes
reduced the damage by half
. We went from having losses of just over 30,000 hectares in 1993,
to 14,500 hectares in the 2022/2023 harvest season
," according to official data from the province.
P.S.