Location: Soil, Water & Air Resources Research
Project Number: 5030-21600-001-003-G
Project Type: Grant
Start Date: Sep 1, 2021
End Date: Aug 31, 2024
Objective:
The objective of this work is to increase regional information about near-surface temperature inversion information that affects chemical drift, and localized information about longer term changes in spring and fall freeze dates.
Approach:
The cooperator will develop two different products, regional information about low level temperature inversions and localized freeze-frost date information. These two products will help to create localized Midwest-regional information that is not available currently.
Soil Temperature Climatology
TASK 1: Create a 7-day average climatology of 4” soil temperature (under sod and under bare ground) for every day of the year from available data resources with a minimum of 5 years of data.
TASK 2: Develop summary statistics (from available data resources with a minimum of 5 years of data) on average dates when ag-relevant thresholds are achieved, such as the average first week with 50F soil temperature in spring and fall.
Existing tool updates - new data
TASK 1: Incorporate the new 1991-2020 climate normals period into relevant tools from the Useful to Usable Project.
TASK 2: Conduct a review of GDD-driven pest/disease tools currently in use and evaluate which tools could be expanded across the entire Corn Belt region.
Dormant-Season Climatology
TASK 1: Develop an accumulated chilling hours tool where users can customize temperature thresholds and accumulation periods. This includes potentially incorporating Mesonet data and building backend capacity to allow for future customized parameters.
TASK 2: Explore providing climatological perspectives to an accumulated chilling hours tool that incorporates hourly data with a period of record sufficient for climatological analysis.
TASK 3: Update and/or expand crop-specific look-up tables that specify chilling hour requirements.
