Duration: 10/01/2004 to 09/30/2009

Administrative Advisor(s):

NIFA Reps:

Non-Technical Summary

Statement of Issues and Justification

Production agriculture is undergoing a continuous change as more technology becomes ingrained in production of crops. Yield monitors, crop modeling and computation power have become extremely important to most producers to increase production and their economic viability. One constant in production agriculture, though, is the variability in weather and climate and the inability to control this factor in crop production. Current forecasts generally do not give producers the guidance needed to make proper decisions. Producers are left with options to try to mitigate the effects of weather, whether by irrigation in rain limited areas, or changing management or reacting to disease outbreaks which occur in conjunction with weather changes. New and improved tools are necessary for producers to make better use of resources and market crops better, and be proactive in their decision-making. Therefore, further understanding about crop-climate interactions and better decision-making tools are necessary to help producers make better use of financial and natural resources. Included in these are improved forecasts and understanding of crop reaction to variable climatic conditions.

The North Central region is one of the most intensely cultivated areas for row crop production. Thus, members of the committee have vested interests in developing new tools for use across the region for the major crops, which have the greatest economic impact across the region when crops losses occur by drought or disease. The interaction among the states of the region and cooperators in other regions has been successful in reaching previous objectives related to crop-climate interaction. Because the interaction of climate, soil and crop productivity crosses political boundaries, the most effective effort to reaching goals is to work in a multi-state effort. The goals set forth here can only be reached if the variety of expertise of the committee can be shared across the region in solving regional problems.

Often the limitation of crop modeling and development of decision-making tools is a lack of comprehensive data to verify models and validate decision tools or the data are not spatially or temporally consistent over a large region. The regional research committee (current NC-94) has a strong and extensive history of developing, verifying and validating agricultural databases (climates, crops and soils) in the North Central Region. The compilation of a current 30 year county-level crop-climate-soil database along with having committee members with a wide variety of expertise allows the committee to move forward in developing decision-making tools to improve crop, irrigation and disease management for major crops across the North Central Region and other cooperating areas.

The current database development has been focused on producing a continuous high quality county-level data of commonly measured quantities of air temperature, precipitation, crop yield and soils data. Recent work as an outcome of the last 5-year plan of work has expanded the database to include solar radiation for crop modeling. The committee is now poised to capitalize on this database, using the expertise in the committee to add some critical values still necessary to understand crop interaction with the atmosphere, and consequently crop productivity, including soil moisture, soil temperature, dew point, wind speed and direction and evapo-transpiration. The data gathered will be used to support other efforts in crop modeling, decision-making strategies and risk assessment tools over the region. Other current issues require looking for integration and comparison of data to more completely represent atmospheric conditions.

These data are necessary for many regulatory issues such as pesticide drift and odor movement associated with confinement operations. Homeland security issues have also become concerned with the density of wind measurements and other atmospheric data for distribution of biological agents. But these measurements are generally not spatially or temporally detailed enough for many purposes. Improvements in crop modeling and risk assessment are limited by detailed measurement of this data. This committee has the expertise to develop integrated datasets based on temperature and precipitation in the current databases. Much of the data to fill these databases would include compiled data from various data sources and networks across the region.

Groups across the country are beginning to understand the value of and accept data from a variety of data and data platforms as valid data. Work still needs to be done to compare the data from various sources to develop relationships between variables gathered from different networks. Members of this committee have been actively involved in this effort for several years and are poised to make progress in this area particularly in support of developing new climatologies regarding wind data, dew point data, and soil moisture data.

Comparison of differing datasets is therefore required to increase the spatial and temporal density of data gathered to support the objectives of the plan of work. Determining the soil moisture status and integrating and checking data for quality are very possible using the expertise of this committee. Developing tools explain the spatial and temporal variability in crop productivity and to develop new decision-making tools are a natural outcome of such data. These outcomes underlie the two-part objectives of the renewed NC-94 committee.

Drought has become a larger concern across particularly the western states of the current NC-94 committee. Pervasive drought and water shortages have not only limited dry-land crop productivity, but limited irrigation in many areas as irrigation water supplies have been insufficient to support minimum flows on many streams. Water rights issues have even become and issue in humid climates such as Michigan. Understanding the larger scale issues of water are very important in agriculture. But decision-making processes occur at the individual level. Members of the committee from the western states realize the need for understanding water and water use issues and have been involved in this area extensively.

Part of this issue is planning for drought and understanding the risk issues when dealing with marginal rainfall areas. This committee has a good understanding of the historical perspective of drought and its re-occurrence. The members can move forward in helping develop risk analysis tools for individuals to use for planning purposes. It is here where the intersection of knowledge of soil moisture occurs with decision-making. Understanding of current soil moisture conditions in an historical perspective is critical to proper management. There are few groups that have access to such knowledge. Decisions based on quality soil moisture measurements can assist producers to make sensible choices for profit and better use of limited resources.

In addition to water, pest pressures are another critical management decision across the region and a limitation to productivity. New insects and diseases have entered and are expected to enter the region. Several members of the committee have expertise in developing tools for pest management.
Moisture again becomes a critical measurement as moisture presence is needed for many diseases. The quantity of rainfall is needed for describing the pressure by other insects, also. Concern here will be focused on but not limited to current pests as others will likely emerge in the five years of the plan of work.

While many of these issues can be addressed at smaller scales, they can be addressed more efficiently by approaching the problems at a regional scale because most of the problems are not local but are regional. Water issues and pest issues continuously cross political boundaries and can be solved only be regional cooperation.

Drought, disease and productivity have a huge economic impact on the region. Failure to address the issues facing production agriculture of the region will slow the economic growth of the states involved and limit the productivity of the region.

Related, Current and Previous Work

The current NCRA research committee, NC-94, has been in existence for nearly fifty years, working on research activities related to the impact of weather and climate on agriculture in the North Central Region and other member states. The committee has helped move forward several major agro-climatological innovations, including some of the first successful efforts to collect and electronically enter data for agroclimatological studies and as well as proposing and championing the formation of regional climate centers which have now successfully provided data to the general public and performed research activities on regional climate for almost 20 years. They have also conducted research activities on regional climate and its impact on agricultural production and resource use.

Recent innovative work has resulted in a temporally and spatially consistent dataset for climate, soils, and crops over the North Central Region. At a county level, daily information for climate and annual cropping information is available from a single, comprehensive database. The most recent committee has evaluated methods to estimate daily solar radiation totals from existing climate information (Grant et al. 2003 in review).

The collection of data has not been simply a data-gathering exercise, but innovation in spatiotemporal analysis and interpolation of data. (Goe and Decker 1983) Temporal interpolation was required because most climate records in the region have at least some missing data, which leads to problems when accumulating data over a period of time or when using these data in other data applications. Spatial interpolation was necessary in areas with few available individual station series or incomplete data. Creation of this internally consistent dataset has been a significant improvement for climate monitoring and crop modeling.

The NC-94 database now includes most of the basic input information needed to run a variety of crop simulations for various applications, including regional yield prediction. That has been part of the goal from the existing plan of work. Crop simulations for several counties and soil types in each state have been run and inter-compared for model comparison and model consistency with observed data. Final results from these model runs are still pending.

Another outcome from the data compilation has been a unique publication, the North Central Region Agricultural Climate Atlas (Gage et al. 2003b). This collection of pertinent climate, soil-and crop information derived from the existing NC-94 database. These will be published soon in a hard-copy color publication. The committee has included updating this information and provision of the data via an interactive web site as part of the new project. The web site would allow users to access, view and analyze pieces of the data set on-line. This would be the first web site of its kind to analyze agriculture in a region.

The committee has also presented a subset of recent research results in a special session at the American Society of Agronomy meeting in Denver, CO in November 2003. Twelve different papers highlighting various aspects of the committee results from regional climate and yield trends to application of the data in disease forecasting were part of the program (Andresen and Aichele, 2003; Arritt et al. 2003; Bowen and Hollinger, 2003; Gage et al. 2003a,b,c; Grant et al. 2003; Herzmann et al. 2003; Hu and Hubbard, 2003; Hollinger and Todey, 2003; Todey and Carlson, 2003; Todey and Chumley 2003).

The plan of proposed work capitalizes on this database development, existing collaborative relationships and the strengths of various members of the committee and their interaction. Professional expertise of the committee has transitioned from basic data analysis to include modeling and application development. The creation of the NC-94 database has brought validation tools together for development of new tools. The members of the committee have the expertise to utilize the data in development and verification of new tools that have been difficult because of disparate incomplete datasets. Several people with crop modeling and risk management backgrounds will be able to compliment to traditional strength of the committee in climate data. Several states are working on combining datasets from different networks (Todey et al. 2002, Arritt et al. 2003), which can further strengthen the data capabilities and support the modeling efforts of the committee.

The application of computer hardware and software in agriculture has rapidly increased during the last decade. The introduction of precision farming and related technologies has increased demand for computer programs that process real-time data. Farmers and consultants are now requesting decision support systems to help them with interpretation of yield maps and as an aid in making appropriate management decisions. Several crop simulation models have moved from the research phase to the on-farm decision support phase and are being evaluated for on-farm management applications. In this project the application of computer models at a regional level is significant because of the existing collaboration between scientists of various states in the region, as well as the regional crop, climate, and soil data base which has been developed during the previous phase of the regional project.

Crop simulation models can be applied in different modes. In a strategic mode models can provide information about the appropriate crops and cultivars to plant and optimum planting dates and other management strategies. In a tactical mode during the growing season models underpin management decisions related to irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide applications. In a forecast mode, when the models are run during the growing season and updated with current weather information, they predict final yield and harvest date. In addition, crop simulation models have been used extensively to study the impact of both climate change and climate variability on agricultural production, including crop yield, natural resource use and environmental impacts, such as carbon sequestration.

The scale of agricultural model applications is a critical and important issue. Most computer models are point-based systems, in that they only simulate yield and other agronomic parameters for a particular location or site based on input variables such as soil survey data or weather data from an individual station which are themselves site-specific. For precision farming applications the models are applied at a field scale and normally run for various locations within a particular field, depending on the availability of input data. Output data are then interpolated between points using various types of computer objective analyses techniques such as kriging. Model output can be scaled up from a field application to a farm and watershed application or regional application, such as a county level or crop reporting district. Accurate model inputs are critical for each level, especially weather and soil inputs, as well as crop management information. In addition, field measurements including yield and yield components are important to provide input to local evaluation of the models. During the previous phase of this project an analysis was conducted on the impact of using different types of weather data on crop model predictions, including weather data representative for a county versus single weather station observations (Zhang 2002; Grant et al. 2003).

Regional drought, legal battles over water rights, and limits on irrigation in humid climates as far east as Michigan have recently refocused attention on irrigation and the availability of water. Irrigation increases crop yields in most areas of the region where water availability is the single most limiting factor in most crop production systems, and accounts for 33% of the total spray irrigation and 18% of the flood irrigation in the US (USGS http://water.usgs.gov/watuse/tables/irtab.st.html). Irrigation efficiency is important from the standpoint of conserving groundwater and preventing groundwater contamination. In addition to these long term goals, in the short term, proper management in the use of irrigation water is also important to maintaining low production costs at a time when profit margins are small.

Irrigation scheduling is the practice of adjusting the frequency and the amount of irrigation to match the crops need for water (Jensen, 1969). The decision on when to irrigate can be made by monitoring the amount of soil moisture in the crop root zone. In todays environment, the impacts of the atmosphere on the soil moisture available for various crops can be modeled (Robinson and Hubbard, 1990; Hubbard, 1990; Mahmood and Hubbard, 2003) using measurements from real time networks (Hubbard et al., 1983; Hubbard and Sivakumar, 2001). Likewise, the feedback process from the widespread use of irrigation and its effect on the atmosphere can be determined (Adegoke et al., 2003).

One important aspect of crop management that is particularly well-suited for the application of spatio-temporal agroclimatological data or information is the control of insects, diseases, and weeds, which when combined have led to losses in overall annual crop productivity as high as 30% of potential yield in recent times despite steady concurrent increases in pesticide use (WMO, 1988). Agricultural sustainability both in ecological and economic terms ultimately depends on controlling these losses without the ever increasing use of chemical pesticides. Integrated pest management (IPM) tenets hold that chemical control of pests should only be used after natural controls have been exhausted, but too often IPM has meant application of more chemical with little regard to the damage done to beneficial insects or the environment. Pesticides have contaminated ground water at locations across the nation. In addition, insect and disease resistance to these chemicals has increased exponentially, at ever faster rates, and threatens production of several crops.

A thorough understanding of the influence of climate and weather on crop and pest development is essential. Insect and disease pests are controlled by weather conditions which are often cyclic. Thus, pests may be a serious problem in some years while little control is necessary in others. However, prophylactic chemicals are frequently applied regardless. The development and use of crop and pest calendars which describe the typical times of crop and insect phenological development and periods of relatively high foliar disease risk will, as effected by weather, ultimately help reduce pesticide use and any associated adverse effects on the environment and humans through better timing of pesticide application. There is significant economic rationale for the use of such strategies. Crop protection IPM schemes that contain agrometeorological and agroclimatological components have been associated with past reductions in pest management costs on the order of 15-50% (WMO, 1988).

Crop and insect development throughout the season are typically positively correlated with temperature. Analytically, an estimate of growth rate or phonological stage can then be determined by summing the time the environmental temperature exceeds a given base threshold temperature at which growth or development of the crop or insect of interest occurs. Derivable from observations of temperature, such heat units or growing degree days (GDD), have been used for many years for monitoring crop and insect development rates and are a fundamental tool in many IPM and crop management strategies (e.g. Gage and Mukerji, 1977; Huffaker, 1982; Laing and Heraty, 1984; Logan, 1988). Application of GDD totals with some insects phenology may be more complicated because air temperature is usually not the controlling variable if the insect spends all or part of its life cycle in the soil. Soil temperature and water content may be as important as air temperature, and relative humidity may also play a role. However, despite these difficulties air temperature may still serve as a good proxy variable (Glogoza and Weiss, 1997; Baker et. al., 1984).

Another area of IPM that allows the effective incorporation of weather and climate data is plant disease management. Foliar disease risk is generally associated with the presence of liquid water on plant tissue surfaces and the environmental temperature while the water is present (Friesland and Schroeder, 1988). The most common strategy in determining disease risk involves monitoring the total time of wetness duration on the foliar surface and mean temperature during the wetting event, which can be correlated with the frequency and magnitude of a particular disease (Huber and Gillespie, 1992). This approach has been successfully developed for many crops and diseases in localized, within-season settings, e.g. fusarium in wheat (Francl and Panigrahi, 1997), soybean rust (Yang et al., 1991), powdery mildew of grapes (Seem and Gadoury, 1996), and late blight of potato (Baker et al., 2003a). Recent research has investigated spatial and temporal integration of these types of approaches (e.g. Andresen et al.,2002) , as well as the use of agroclimatological information in long term strategic management planning (Magarey et al.,1999).

The atmosphere, soil, plant/crop continuum needs to be viewed as an integrated component in a larger system in which there are feedbacks and processes which connect the individual components. Monitoring and modeling of these components is essential to understanding the system as a whole. However, monitoring of the atmosphere has always been incomplete. A good deal of the surface monitoring effort at the federal level has gone into the Cooperative Observer Network, a network that records maximum and minimum daily temperatures and the 24 hr precipitation catch and sometimes pan evaporation and soil temperature. Another effort, by NOAA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aimed at supporting aviation, has resulted in hourly readings of temperature, precipitation, visibility, pressure, etc. at major and smaller airport locations around the country. Other surface networks include the SNOTEL network, SCAN (Soil Climate Analysis Network), various mesoscale state networks (such as those currently operating in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota) and various school networks. Upper air data have been taken through a sounding program using balloon-based radiosondes while radar based systems for weather nearly cover the US.

A major limitation of any attempt to simulate agrometeorological processes on scales larger than the plot level is measurement of precipitation, which is among the most spatially discontinuous of all environmental variables. The National Weather Service (NWS) recently completed deployment of a new weather radar system, the WSR-88D NEXt generation RADar, or NEXRAD at 161 sites across the U.S. The NEXRAD system provides estimates of hourly precipitation rates at approximately 2 and 4 km spatial resolution over 230 km radius areas surrounding each of the radar sites. Regional mosaic integrations of the individual radar sites (available from NOAA's Center for Hydrometeorological Prediction Center) allow characterization of precipitation over large areas on a spatial scale and resolution not previously obtainable. Early work with the NEXRAD precipitation estimates for agricultural applications appears promising (Andresen et al., 2002).

Maximal utility of the NC-94 regional database for decision-making requires the addition of various variables. The present database at the county level spatial scale and daily temporal scale provides an excellent framework on which these additional variables can be included. New daily variables will be incorporated into the database such as soil moisture, soil temperature, wind speed/direction, dew point temperature, and potential or reference evapotranspiration. Of primary concern to agriculture in the region are soil moisture conditions. Disease occurrences, crop emergence, field work, and ultimately yield are driven by soil moisture. Considering the pervasive impact of soil moisture, limited soil moisture measurements exist in this (or any) region. Nebraska has 47 sites with soil moisture measurements. Iowa has two sites with 12 more to be deployed in the fall of 2003. Illinois has upgraded its 19 soil moisture measurement sites to continuous recording instruments. Michigan has 24 sites with continuous data limited to the top 30cm of the soil profile. Missouri has six current sites with a large expansion proposed. Other states in the region have soil moisture measurement instrumentation planned. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other groups attempt to simulate soil moisture across the nation based on large scale atmospheric simulations. Unfortunately, based on the scale on which it operates, the CPC model output cannot account for many of the observed changes in the moisture profile over crop land. It also lacks the capability to describe different soil moisture levels.

Objectives

1. The committee will develop new tactical/strategic decision tools for risk management assessment and crop production utilizing the existing NC-94 crop-climate-soil database. <ul> <li>Objective 1.1: New decision-making and risk assessment tools will be developed for improved crop selection and production systems. <li>Objective 1.2: The region will be reviewed to determine the benefit of irrigation using a drought probability analysis. <li>Objective 1.3: New insect-weed-pest decision and risk management tools will be developed using by looking at suitability and susceptibility criteria and developing estimates of timing and frequency using phenological data. </ul>
   
2. To support the risk assessment and decision-making tools of objective 1 and to further understand crop-climate-soil interaction, further development of new climatologies of existing data and derived variables will occur to expand the database capabilities.<ul> <li>Objective 2.1: We will develop new climatologies of several base and derived variables, such as soil moisture, wind speed and direction, and dew point which are critical to crop production as well as being useful to further improve crop modeling. <li>Objective 2.2: Temporal and spatial integration of real-time networks will occur as well as comparison with remotely sensed data and possible geographic expansion of the current database. <li>Objective 2.3: The current databases will be maintained, updated for new data and disseminated for wider use via an interactive web site. </ul>
   

Methods

Objective 1 Tool Development for Crop and Risk Management Objective 1.1 Crop Management and Decision-making We propose to utilize crop simulation models that are part of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) Version 4 and similar models to determine optimum management practices for the region (Hoogenboom et al., 2003a,b). The Cropping System Model (CSM) is comprised of the grain cereal model CERES and the grain legume model (CROPGRO), as well as models for various other crops important in the region (Jones et al., 2003). These models have been extensively tested for the region and have been used for a wide range of applications, ranging from on-farm management and precision farming to the impact of climate change and climate variability at regional and national levels (Tsuji et al., 1998; Nijbroek et al., 2003). The models will be linked to the regional data base on local weather and soil data that was developed during the previous phase of the project (Gage et al. 2003b). For the dominant agricultural counties in each state, the models will be evaluated with local yield data and then used to determine alternate management strategies for the main crops, including maize and soybean. The interaction between regional climate, local weather and crop response will be analyzed. It is expected that this information will be disseminated through regional web sites and other means of documentation. The process of simulating the crop models with the weather, soils, and management inputs (at the same scale as yield records) and comparing to the observed yield records , will be highly valuable toward the improvement of the crop models, if the models are shown to inadequately simulate particular conditions of temperature stress, water deficit, or excess water. This exercise will also result in more accurate regionally-evaluated model predictions of yield. Objective 1.2 Irrigation Management and Tool Development We propose to develop various tools to assist farmers in the decision on when to irrigate. The research will focus on combining soils, crop, and weather data for the region with various models into a coherent decision support tool that can be easily used by farmers and irrigators. Timely access to weather data is critical for irrigation management. Through integration of data from various networks as outlined in the second objective, users will be able to access a web-based program that provides a seamless integration with weather and soil data for near-time irrigation scheduling. Potential models that will be evaluated will include the FAO equations as well as more complex simulation models discussed previously. In addition we will study the effect of changes in land use on the lower atmosphere. We will look specifically for evidence of temperature modifications due to the increase of irrigation in the various states involved. Objective 1.3 Pest Management and Forecasting The overwhelming majority of previous research in the use of IPM strategies for assistance in managerial decision-making considers applications at the local or field level for tactical, within-season decisions. We propose the development of an IPM database on the regional level which describes temporal and spatial patterns of insect and disease risk on longer, strategic time scales. The first database would consider GDD accumulation for air and soil environments at several typical threshold temperatures (e.g. 100C). The second major database would investigate the characteristics of wetness duration at several different air temperatures for daily and total event time intervals. Analytically, the data series would be considered from both within-season and across-season time frames. The databases will be developed both with data and analytical products produced earlier in the NC-94 Regional Research Project (e.g. daily series of air temperature on a county basis) new products developed in the current project (e.g. simulated daily maximum and minimum soil temperatures) and additional climatological data, including historical hourly data from NWS first and second order observations sites, which are available from the late 1940s through the present. Finally, given recent evidence for significant changes in insect and pressure associated with climatological changes at some areas within the North Central region (Andresen and Harman, 1994; Baker et al., 2003b), we will also investigate the developed data series for any temporal trends. Objective 2 New Climatologies and Data to Support Tool Development and Modeling The modeling efforts from Objective 1 will need to be supported by the addition of more variables into the current database and development of new climatologies. The existing database will be enhanced for the development of more complex agricultural production forecasts and risk assessments than presently possible. Objective 2.1 Climatologies and Derived Variables In previous projects, temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, soils data, and crop yield data have been compiled for each county in the North Central Region. The work included under this sub-objective will extend previous work to continuously update the temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation data to include the most recent year, and to expand the data base to include soil moisture, and other weather variables measured and derived from state mesonet observations. Capitalizing on these measurements to understand current conditions and to see the variability in different soils over several years will provide a base of understanding the spatial and temporal variability in soil moisture. While we acknowledge that soil moisture measurements will likely never be dense enough to completely describe variability of the variable on all spatial scales given current technological constraints, we believe that modeling efforts using the detailed soils data currently in the NC-94 database may become a valuable and useful source of information for description of moisture conditions across the region. Expansion of the databases and climatologies will occur in support of both objectives. Other regularly measured variables that would support crop modeling and development or risk management tools include dew points and wind speed and direction. Wind data are necessary for many regulatory issues such as pesticide drift and odor movement associated with confinement operations. Homeland security issues have also become concerned with the density of wind measurements for distribution of biological agents. But these measurements are generally not spatially or temporally detailed enough for many purposes. Improvements in crop modeling and risk assessment are limited by detailed measurement of dew point data. This committee has the expertise to develop integrated datasets based on temperature and precipitation in the current databases. Much of the data to fill these databases would include compiled data from various data sources and networks across the region. Exploration of the spatial variability of the interactions of soils, climate, and crops typically requires the development of additional summary variables such as crop yield trends, crop yield variability, land use trends and crop production changes. Variables such as these will be included in the database to simplify assessments by a wide range of non-technical stakeholders. Objective 2.2 Temporal and Spatial Integration of Networks Each measurement effort captures a portion of the atmospheric signal. The NC-94 regional database consists of daily climate, soils, and yearly agricultural production of wheat, maize, and soybeans in the north central region. The utility of this database will be enhanced by integrating other higher temporal and spatial resolution databases. In this study we propose to start with higher resolution (hourly) data and develop transformation functions between the hourly and daily data. With the differences in observation times, instruments, temporal resolution, and technology, combining different observations is a challenge (Karl et al. 1986: Quayle et al. 1991). We will evaluate how best to incorporate hourly records from mesonet weather stations into the daily weather databaseeither by summarizing conditions on a daily timescale, providing information on the variation of variables through the course of the daily timestep of the present database, or using assumed observation times. Recent research reveals that differences in radiation shielding and ventilation between sensor systems can be employed to make adjustments from one system to another (Hubbard and Lin, 2002). Analysis of this new integrated database will be greatly enhanced by the greater capture of the atmospheric signal. The statistical relationships so defined can be the basis for combining the various networks into a single monitoring system. We expect this to increase the spatial and temporal resolution of the observations. In addition, the integration of databases derived from remote sensing (including the normalized difference vegetation index) with weekly or longer record intervals will also be explored. These remote sensing records may be very useful, integrated with regionally-spatial crop model predictions. The remote sensing will also include use of NEXRAD-derived precipitation estimates to improve the spatio-temporal resolution of precipitation. The NC-94 regional database consists of daily climate, soils, and yearly agricultural production of wheat, maize, and soybeans in the north central region. The spatial domain of the database could be expanded to include other states to complete the production area for soybeans and/or include the production areas for other crops, such as cotton or sorghum. This expansion will, however, require significant coordination of resources not presently established in the committee. Should additional resources be available, this expansion would be a logical extension of the database. Objective 2.3 Database Updating and Dissemination The existing NC-94 crop-climate-soil database provides a 30-year climatology of county-level crop yields, climate, and soils data for the north-central region. Continuous updating of the database is necessary to maintain the integrity and usefulness of the database for historical comparison and continuous examination of time trends. The committee will expand the accessibility of the data by developing an interactive web site to allow spatial/temporal display and download of data from the database. Climatologies of the daily and summary variables will be developed for general distribution through printed and interactive web atlases. This will allow rapid comparison to real data for crop modelers, simplified access to temporal trends in production and climate at a county level, and many other extension, research and educational uses.

Measurement of Progress and Results

Outputs

• Alternative and hopefully improved management strategies will be determined for major crops in states.
• Crop models will be evaluated and improved to represent and forecast the growing conditions of the north central region and potentially other states.
• New and more precise pest forecast techniques will be developed based on improved representation of the atmosphere near the surface from combined datasets.
• New irrigation scheduling techniques will be developed.
• New variables will be added to the current county-level data to improve the representation of the atmospheric and soil moisture conditions currently and historically.
• Output 6; The current database and updated data will be ported to an interactive web application to display and serve data to more users. Output 7; New functions will be developed to compare atmospheric data gathered from different weather stations

Outcomes or Projected Impacts

• Improved yield forecasts will improve marketability of crops and ultimately lead to better economic decision-making based on better information.
• Better decision-making for irrigation will improve profitability for farmers using irrigation. It will improve the use efficiency of a scarce commodity.
• Provide decision tools for better water management particularly in hard-hit drought areas to make most efficient use of scarce water resources.
• Development of more detailed pest phenologies to pinpoint use of pest management techniques. This will allow more efficient use of pesticides and hopefully limit overuse of chemical application.
• Development of soil moisture climatologies will fill a critical hole in understanding crop production, understanding the dynamic changes in soil moisture averaged over time and during the growing season.
• Outcome/Impact 6; Atmospheric moisture climatology will provide improved understanding of moisture conditions in spatial and temporal detail, which are necessary for improved disease forecasts and ultimately more precise use of chemicals and improved profitability. Outcome/Impact 7; Climatologies of new variables will improve the crop modeling capability by filling unknown information across the region. Outcome/Impact 8; Better access to disparate data sets and comparison techniques for comparing them. This will allow for more detailed comparison and representation of the current weather and climate situation. Outcome/Impact 9; Better access to weather and soils data in combination with crop yield histories for model testing, will result in improved crop model capabilities.

Milestones

(2005): Development of interactive web site for data serving

(2008): Intercomparison of networks and development of comparison algorithms

(2008): Development of detailed atmospheric moisture measurement and climatology

(2009): Soil moisture measurement and development of climatology

(2009): Disease forecasting

(2009):Evaluation and comparison of crop models for regional use

(0):0

Projected Participation

View Appendix E: Participation

Outreach Plan

As discussed in the outcomes, an interactive web site and data archive will be developed to display and serve the regional crop-soil-climate data collected as part of the research work. Users will be able to access and plot information here. A hard-copy publication of the main climate, crop and soil maps and trends is in preparation. Refereed publications and conference papers will be used to report research results. Several members of the committee are state climatologists for their respective states. Because of this responsibility to serve the public, many results will be incorporated in products, web sites and information provided to people of the respective states.

Organization/Governance

The research committee will have a designated representative from each state appointed by the Director of their Agriculture Experiment Station for all states who have signed on to the original proposal or have been approved for addition later. Addition of members shall be subject to request at the annual meeting and approval of more than 50% of the voting members in attendance. The executive committee shall consist of a Chair and Secretary (who also acts as the Chair-elect). Administrative guidance will be provided by an assigned Administrative Advisor and a CSREES Representative. A nomination committee shall be convened annually to recommend new officers. A planning committee shall be convened annual to select a meeting site and coordinate with the executive committee and administrators to coordinate arrangements at the meeting site. Meetings will occur annually unless otherwise designated as needed and approved.

Literature Cited

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