Location: Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-21660-005-060-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 15, 2022
End Date: Jun 14, 2027
Objective:
The overall goal of this project is to develop web-based decision support tools on cover crop management practices used by farmers.
Specific objectives:
Specifically, cooperator will:
1. Partner on the development of a Conservation Vegetation Management Decision Tool for NRCS and the public to use to make decisions on management of NRCS defined conservation vegetation practices with emphasis on cover crops, including species selection, seeding rates, and implementation requirements. Economics, water and nitrogen management will be emphasized for cover crop management specifically.
2. Develop training materials and provide training and extension and outreach materials to agricultural professionals, industry, and farmers.
3. Provide project management support.
Approach:
The suite of decision tools that are being integrated into a single conservation vegetation management tool will require extensive data verification to expand regional tools to cover the entire US. For expert-based tools, this will include weekly data verification meetings with domain experts from public and private sector. For process-based models this includes acquiring and structuring additional data for calibration for regions not yet captured. Linking this data to soil and climate data is necessary for having national focused tools. Furthermore, the decision tools will be adapted to provide a user-experience that enables interoperability between tools. Lastly, graphic designers, videographers, and content generators will develop learning modules for the DSTs.
