Location: Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory
Project Number: 3098-13610-009-091-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2022
End Date: Jun 30, 2027
Objective:
AMENDMENT 04)
See Agreement, ARS Agrees to:
AMENDMENT 03)
Continue adding economic, environmental and agronomic performance measures to metrics for precision agriculture. Determine efficiency trials for fertilizers using precision placement to determine. Evaluate within field rooting depth variability and how that may impact agronomic and environmental performance of fertilizers in a precision ag context. Precision Ag/Precision Conservation work will continue in Texas, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Colorado. Evaluate yield, yield variability, and yield potential within producers fields in Texas, Colorado, Kentucky and Maryland as a function of soils and landscape position. Begin estimation of whether it is more cost effective to convert consistently poor performing portions of fields to permanent cover through NRCS practices or to be subject to payouts from crop insurance.
AMENDMENT 02)
Rebudget to include authorization for subawards.
Iowa State University - to parameterize agricultural field operations and natural infrastructure practices for input to the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model.
University of Maryland - Evaluate the potential environmental tradeoffs in implementing precision agriculture.
Colorado State University - Continue wrk parameterizing agricultural field operations for input the the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model.
AMENDMENT 01)
Continue development of models to predict the off-site effects of conservation practices on working lands and wetlands to more fully address the multiple resource concerns of the agency. Strengthen on-site dedicated computing capacity to ensure national scale model runs are processed efficiently on a near-real-time basis. Continue development of datasets, methods and software to support national scale modeling efforts using SWAT+. Continue adding economic, environmental and agronomic performance measures to metrics for precision agriculture. Determine efficiency trials for fertilizers using precision placement to determine. Evaluate within field rooting depth variability and how that may impact agronomic and environmental performance of fertilizers in a precision ag context. Precision Ag/Precision Conservation work will continue in Texas, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Colorado.
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Continue development of models to predict the off-site effects of conservation practices on working lands and wetlands to more fully address the multiple resource concerns of the agency. Strengthen on-site dedicated computing capacity to ensure national scale model runs are processed efficiently on a near-real-time basis. Continue development of datasets, methods and software to support national scale modeling efforts using SWAT+. Continue adding economic, environmental and agronomic performance measures to metrics for precision agriculture. Determine efficiency trials for fertilizers using precision placement to determine. Evaluate within field rooting depth variability and how that may impact agronomic and environmental performance of fertilizers in a precision ag context.
Approach:
Complete modeling and documentation for HUC-12 watersheds in the National Agroecosystems Model. Incorporate updated point source water and nutrient loads. Develop field boundary data for US croplands to define computational modeling units. Continue development of soil/land use overlays for upland and flood plain zones in all 12-digit watersheds. Develop or update other watershed data needed for the 12-digit simulation including weather, channel, reservoir and point sources. Enhance CEAP predictions by incorporating enhanced groundwater simulation routines in SWAT+. Acquire and integrate advanced computer hardware at the location to enable highly detailed complex SWAT+ simulations. Calibration and Validation. Update stream gage data and develop water, sediment and nutrient budgets for use as ‘soft data’ constraints in calibration. Downscale APEX predictions and CEAP survey results for use in SWAT+ baseline and scenarios simulations. Scenario Tools. Continue the development of a library of APEX and SWAT simulations to use as export coefficients and delivery ratios. Model/Tool Development. Continue the development and testing of stream bank erosion, flood plain deposition, legacy/lag load estimations, and riparian wetlands. Incorporate tools for displaying water, sediment and nutrient budgets. Implement research plan and a conservation plan with local NRCS planners. Acquire access to technology necessary to implement concepts of precision agriculture that includes variable rate fertilization. Implement fourth year of long-term study in collaboration with Texas AgriLife. Develop concepts around the crop root exploration and root impairment by restrictive layers that may inhibit nutrient uptake. Begin development of tools to guide precision nutrient management related to potential root exploration in collaboration with University of Kentucky. Develop and test a data management tool to pull precision agriculture data from different manufacturers to be processed in a single application. Expand the Precision Agriculture/Precision Conservation to work with agricultural producers in semiarid dryland small grain production to evaluate precision conservation in these systems.
