(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
From VOA Learning English, this is the Agriculture Report.
Farmers are increasingly using high-tech products to lower their costs, increase the amount of crops they grow and add to their profits. But they are not just using high-tech machines. They also now employ services that gather information about their farms to improve their businesses.
The Finfrock family grows corn and soybeans on about 3,200 hectares in the Midwestern state of Illinois. Shelley Finfrock and her husband use technology to operate the large farm with just their son and one employee. But Ms Finfrock says technology can not control everything.
"Weather's probably the most important thing, and the most uncontrollable thing," Finfrock said.
She says weather affects every part of a farm, including the soil, animals that eat the crops and crop production. She says all these affect profit.
The soil in the field near the farm house looks and sounds dry. But below the surface, it has enough water to let corn seeds begin to grow. The amount of rain that falls can differ greatly from field to field on the farm.
The Finfrocks farm in five counties, checking water levels and other conditions on such a large spread can take a lot of travel time. So for the past year, Ms Finfrock has been testing an online service called Climate Basic.
The service sends her a text message very early in the morning. It tells her how much rain fell on her farms in the past 24 hours. It measures to the hundredths of a centimeter. She says the service has worked so far.
"We have a farm from where we're sitting right now, just a mile south, and it'll say it was dry, and you got a good half inch rain [up here], and you go down there and it's dry. So it was a pretty good tool to use," Finfrock said.
Tristan D'Orgeval works at Climate Corporation which developed the Climate Basic program.
"We are dealing every day with more than 10 million points for precipitation, updated on an hourly basis," D'Orgeval said.
Mr. D'Orgeval says the company uses data from the National Weather Service and other sources.
"Including radar, rain gauges and satellites, to have the best picture of the rainfall on a field-per-field basis," D'Orgeval said.
Climate Corporation released a more complex version of its program this year called Climate Pro. It hopes the program will help farmers decide what to plant, and when to use chemicals that improve growth and kill insects. The program will even tell them how much money they might make.
And that's the VOA Learning English Agriculture Report. I'm Christopher Cruise.
文本来自51voa，译文属可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载
词汇解释
1.radar n. [雷达] 雷达，无线电探测器
They acquired the target by radar.
他们用雷达捕获了目标。
2.precipitation n. [化学] 沉淀，[化学] 沉淀物；冰雹；坠落；鲁莽
All these facts play against the production of precipitation.
这些因素均对产生降水极为不利。
3.gauge n. 计量器；标准尺寸；容量规格 vt. 测量；估计；给…定规格
If the gauge can not be measured precisely, it will lead to weighty rail hidden trouble.
如果轨距不能精确的检测，将会造成重大的铁路安全隐患。
内容解析
1.Farmers are increasingly using high-tech products to lower their costs, increase the amount of crops they grow and add to their profits.
add to 加入，加到；增加
Add the second total to the third.
把第二笔总额加在第三笔总额上。
The bad weather added to the shipwrecked sailors’ difficulties.
恶劣的天气增加了失事船只的船员们的困难。
参考译文
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
农民们越来越多地使用高科技产品来降低成本、增产和提高盈利。但是他们不仅仅使用高科技机器，还购买收集农场信息的服务来改善运营。
芬弗洛克一家在伊利诺州中西部3200公顷的土地上种植了玉米和大豆，雪莉和丈夫使用科技来经营这个大农场，还只用了儿子和一个雇员做帮手。但芬弗洛克女士说科技不能控制一切。
“天气可能是最重要的，也是最无法控制的东西。”
她说天气影响农场的各个方面，包括土壤、吃作物的动物和作物产量。她说所有这些都会影响收益。
农场附近田地的土壤看起来很干，踩下去的声音也感觉很干。但在土壤下面有充足的水分让玉米种子发芽，农场不同田地的降雨量可能差异很大。
芬弗洛克一家在五个郡县开农场，所以在这么大面积的区域检查含水量等协调工作需要花费大量来来往往的时间。因此去年，Finfrock开始尝试使用名为“基本气候”的网络服务。
该服务每天清晨就给她发一条信息，告诉她过去24小时农场的降雨量，精确到百分之一厘米，她说这个服务很不错。
“从我们坐的地方开始一直向南延伸一英里有个农场，信息说农场很干燥，只下了半英寸雨，我们去看了，果然如此。所以这个工具很好用。”
特里斯坦·德奥哲瓦就职于开发了“基本气候”程序的Climate Corporation公司。
“我们每天处理超过1000万条有关降雨的信息，这些信息每小时更新一次。”
德奥哲瓦说该公司使用的信息来自国家气象局等途径。
“包括雷达、雨量计和卫星，按照每块田地组成最精确的雨量图。”
Climate Corporation公司今年发布了名为Climate Pro的更复杂版本，希望该程序能帮助农民决定种植什么，何时使用促进生长和杀虫的农药，该程序甚至还能告诉农民需要花多少钱。
这就是美国之音慢速英语农业报道，我是克里斯多夫·克鲁斯。
