Location: Soil, Water & Air Resources Research
Project Number: 5030-21600-001-008-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2023
End Date: Aug 31, 2026
Objective:
Increase regional access to climate information and tools across the Midwest to develop regional information about soil temperature and evapo-transpiration climatologies for specialty crops.
Additional Objective:
The Cooperator will work with the USDA Midwest Climate Hub (MCH) to develop an online information portal that will be populated with content generated by the USDA-funded project “Integrated Midwest Partnerships for Actionable Climate Tools and Training (IMPACT^2).” This portal will share information about Climate Smart Practices developed from the project mentioned as well as the work developed with other partners.
Approach:
The Cooperator and USDA Midwest Climate Hub (MCH) have collaborated on several operational on-line products, including the Freeze Date Tool, Soil Temperature Climatology, and the Customized Chilling Hours Tool. This project will build on these previous products by implementing new features and functions into existing ag-climate tools hosted and managed by the Cooperator. To meet this project's objective, the following tasks will be undertaken as part of the proposed approach:
TASK 1: Stakeholder Input Collection
Coordinate with MCH staff and key stakeholders to prioritize and implement enhancements to existing ag-climate tools. These may include but are not limited to the use of additional input datasets, the inclusion of new graphics and visualizations, and additional filtering options and customizations.
TASK 2: New Product Development
TASK 2a: Develop a regional Growing Degree Day (GDD) visualization product that lets users view customized maps and charts of current and past GDD accumulations and related variables. This may include the incorporation of pest phenology look-up tables, short-term forecasts, and/or alert systems.
TASK 2b: Explore the feasibility of integrating soil temperature forecasts into the Cooperator's Regional Mesonet Program (RMP) and developing a threshold-driven user alert system.
TASK 2c: Work with MCH regional partners to increase access to historical and real-time evaporation-related metrics, humidity/dew point data, and heat stress data and resources. This may include developing new datasets or tools and should leverage any relevant work in progress in the Midwest.
TASK 3: Product dissemination
TASK 3a: Develop and implement an engagement plan for gathering stakeholder input on new and existing products.
TASK 3b: Disseminate new and existing products. Tactics may include but are not limited to webinars, training materials and events, dynamic and static online content, social media, press releases, and email content.
Additional Project Objectives and Tasks:
Task 1: Content database
The Cooperator will develop a database that can store climate-smart agriculture content generated by the MCH and partners. The database will include essential information fields required for populating a standardized webpage template.
Task 2: Webpage template
The Cooperator will design a template webpage that uniformly displays essential database content (e.g., summary text, full text, graphics, URLs, keywords, crops, climate vulnerabilities/impacts, references).
Task 3: Information portal
The Cooperator will implement a basic webpage that connects to a content database and populates a standardized website template. This webpage be designed with flexibility in mind so future enhancements (such as searchability and filtering) can be implemented more easily later, if desired.
Project Deliverables
1. A database to store climate-smart agriculture content.
2. A webpage template design.
3. A webpage that displays information from the climate-smart agriculture database.
