- Author: Mike Hsu
Growers in California grapple with plenty of climate uncertainty – but a new set of tools can help wheat farmers make crucial fertilizer decisions with more precision and confidence.
An interactive website integrates these tools – developed or adapted by researchers at the University of California, Davis and University of California Cooperative Extension – that provide farmers with recommendations for applying nitrogen fertilizers, specific to their own sites and conditions.
While factoring in those weather variables, the management tool also draws data from two indicators of nitrogen sufficiency or deficiency: the results of a soil nitrate quick test (a simple test previously used in vegetable crop systems along the coast), and comparisons of plant health in the broader field to that in a “nitrogen-rich reference zone” (a practice originally developed in the Midwest).
Using them in tandem, in the context of California wheat growing, is a novel approach. In a Nov. 4 webinar, Lundy will introduce the use of the nitrogen-rich reference zone, a small area in a field where extra fertilizer is added at the beginning of the season.
“This project is a unique example of digital agriculture at work in an applied setting,” he explained. “We are integrating ‘big data' sources like site-specific soil and weather data, as well as satellite, drone and other sensor measurements into an interactive web interface. This allows users to receive straightforward yet highly customized recommendations from somewhat complex agronomic models.”
The team conducted 11 on-farm demonstrations in fields representing a wide range of agroecosystems, including the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, Delta region, and Tulelake Basin.
Fritz Durst, a western Yolo County-based grower who participated in one of the case studies, said that the process of gathering the data was “actually pretty simple” and the tool “eliminates much of the guesswork” for managing nitrogen fertilizers.
“This tool is extremely helpful for me to make decisions about the most efficient and cost-effective method for applying nitrogen to my wheat,” Durst said.
In addition to potentially increasing crop productivity and farmer net-income, the tool can benefit the environment by reducing the amount of nitrate leaching from fertilizer applications, according to Lundy.
“It's not only trying to say how much fertilizer to put down, sometimes it's trying to confirm you don't really need any fertilizer,” he said.
More resources and events related to the Nitrogen Fertilizer Management Tool for California Wheat – including demonstration activities – will appear on the UC Small Grains blog.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Last week it rained in southern California. And no one warned me. Despite that, it was a productive trip to the South Coast REC to talk about a different model for calculating recharge rates. No surprise that Chris, Darren, Kat, Deb and Lisa were way ahead of the topic and had an approach ready to propose. It made for easy work that will meet the goals of providing a better experience for the researcher by being able to provide multi-year rates at time of proposal submission. The researcher costs would be guaranteed for specified services and space, thus eliminating the uncertainty of budgeting costs. Mid-October we will have the conversation at Kearney and then work with the remaining RECs to meet the same goals.
October is a busy month. My entire career, it seems that October, March and July have been heavy travel months. This position promises to maintain the trend. If I had more time, I'd like to hear the conversation next week at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Science Breakthroughs 2030: A Strategy for Food and Agricultural Research meeting to be held in Irvine, October 2 – 4. NAS conducted a study “to identify ambitious scientific opportunities in food and agriculture” and identified five focal areas for the Breakthroughs 2030 Study including Greener Plants, Greener Animals, Reducing Food Waste, Safer Food Supply, and Pathways for Resilience. These areas will be explored in greater depth by experts at the approaching "Jamboree Meeting" on October 2-4 in Irvine, CA. Anyone planning to attend?
Had the study identified ‘developing new foods' as a focal area, the study group might be interested in a news piece Ruth Dahlquist-Willard sent along about the moringa (http://abc30.com/2433622/). I had never heard of the moringa before. I suspect it might still be a while before I actually come across the ingredient on a menu, but it is good to know how it ties to CA and UC ANR.
This week I am in Philadelphia attending the annual Ag Experiment Station Directors meeting. NIFA presented a session on Big Data and talked about their upcoming listening sessions to seek stakeholder input on science opportunities. There is one in Sacramento on Nov 2 that I hope will be well attended by UC, including UC ANR. The Big Data session was interesting, particularly comments that Amazon and social media are the biggest contributors to big data – I typically think of remote sensing and automated data acquisition as sources of big data and don't give much thought to these other sources. I learned a lot in this session, including what the term georectification means and how it ties to deep learning used by Siri and Watson. I also learned about DRYAD – an open platform for sharing data. This might be of use to a MultiState Research Project that I have been involved with and now work with as the administrative advisor.
Next week, instead of heading south to Irvine, I head back east (Vermont) to the annual Extension Directors meeting. I preferred the arrangement last year when the Ag Experiment Station Directors and the Extension Directors met jointly, and in the west. I haven't looked at the agenda yet but hope to learn a few things there. I need to stay focused on the fact that I am the secretary and have to take minutes – not my strong suit and perhaps explains my calculus grade (the first time through).
In the meantime, more learning tomorrow, another manuscript to read, some position descriptions to wrap up before next week and what looks to be a full day in Davis on Friday. I will keep you posted how these progress.
- Author: Shane Feirer
Today was a great day at the ESRI User conference. I attended several sessions covering the use of raster and vector data in big data analyses, the use of python and r for data science, and the use of arcpy to create and modify maps in ArcGIS Pro.
Speaking of big data and arcgis, over the past 5 years I have watched ESRI develop their software from a desktop environment to a distributed computer platform capable of analyzing millions of spatial features in minutes and hours instead of days or weeks. These tools are now accessible to the average users of arcgis without the need to understand the underlying big data frameworks and software. We now have the ability to install tools such as GeoAnalytics Server, the Spatial Temporal Datastore, and ArcGIS Pro and take advantage of big data analytics within ArcGIS Pro. By using these tools we do not have to know how to setup and manage tools like apache spark, elasticsearch, or other tools.
The above tools are used to store and analyze vector data. To analyze multidimensional rasters, we have the ability to use mosaic datasets to store and analyze multiple raster datasets and multiple raster formats. Over the past years I underestimated the capability and the utility of mosaic datasets. These datasets have the ability to calculate custom raster functions on the fly. These datasets can also be shared via ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Online. I look forward to utilizing the datasets in the future.
One thing to note at the ESRI User Conference is that like last year all of the presentations that I have seen by ESRI staff this year have been on ArcGIS Pro. The ArcGIS Pro software is getting more powerful and ESRI is building more functionality into this new software platform.
I cannot wait to see what day 4 brings tomorrow.
- Author: Andy Lyons
A Unique Data Science Summit
Yesterday, several of us in the IGIS Program participated remotely in a very interesting summit on data science in agriculture. The summit was sponsored by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which is the funding arm of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The goal of the summit was to hear examples of how data collection systems and analytics are playing a transformative role in agriculture, in order to help USDA develop an investment strategy for the next phase of their data science grant program. USDA has been funding innovative big data projects for some time, and will soon be rolling out a new initiative called FACT (Food and Agriculture Cyberinformatics and Tools Initiative).
It was exciting to hear the presentations about how rapid advancements in data collection systems, processing, and analytics are changing agriculture across the US and overseas. From sensor systems that support precision farming, to a new generation of genomics studies, to smarter production models and decision support systems, innovation is happening everywhere. The recorded presentations are online.
What Should USDA Fund?
NIFA is actively soliciting input from experts in the field about funding priorities, and have set up an online forum where people can provide feedback and vote for ideas. The forum is centered around six questions that were also discussed in breakout groups at yesterday's summit. The questions ask what are the most promising opportunities for:
- data-driven advances in agriculture and the food-production systems?
- enhancing cross-sector advances in data applications?
- data-driven advances to address societal well-being and consumer demands?
- to address challenges of various facets of data management and application?
- to ensure future generations of data expertise?
- big data in communications, property rights, and communities?
Data Science in ANR
ANR Farm Advisors and Specialists have been exploring similar questions for years. To name just a couple of examples, the Precision Agriculture workgroup has been developing methods to measure and manage for in-field variability. ANR has also sponsored several apps-for-ag hackathons, including one they hosted this past summer in collaboration with the State Fair. Here at IGIS, we teach workshops on geospatial data analysis, data management, and remote sensing with drones. We also maintain ANR's network of Flux towers, and have digitized historical records from ANR's network of Research and Extension Centers.
What do YOU think?
Many people think data analytics will be the engine for the next revolution in agriculture - what do you think the priority areas should be? NIFA is soliciting input through their Ideas Engine through the end of October. Take this unique opportunity to help shape the future of agricultural data science by letting your voice be heard!
- Author: Robert Johnson
I recently attended the Pacific Research Platform Science Engagement Workshop hosted by CITRIS and Calit2 at UC Merced. The PRP is a "data freeway" currently being developed by researchers at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley to connect the major research universities and other research institutions on the west coast with the goal of sharing large datasets and computational resources at speeds of 10-100 Gbps.
The focus of the workshop were a number of digital archaeology projects that were either already using the PRP architecture or had the potential to do so. It was quite interesting to see the efforts being undertaken to preserve at-risk heritage sites using drone imagery, 3D scans of artifacts and 360° virtual reality imagery. All of these techniques produce massive datasets (often several terabytes) which require extensive post-processing and therefore are exactly the type of projects that the PRP was designed for.
After the presentations, we headed over to UC Merced's new WAVE (Wide-Area Visualization Environment) facility to check out some of the virtual reality imagery that had been discussed. The WAVE consists of twenty 4k 3D monitors arranged in a parabolic curve to create an immersive VR environment. We saw several incredibly detailed image sets of archaeological sites in Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Belize that had been processed and were being served through the PRP architecture. The effect was quite impressive, it really was the next best thing to being at the actual site.
All in all, this was a real eye-opening workshop that gave a compelling picture of the future of sharing and visualization of Big Data.