NUGGET: An On-Line Tool Management of Nutrients and Trace Gas Emission in Agroecosystems

Farmers, crop consultants, and regulators are constantly faced with management/policy decisions that require the integration of current crop and soil conditions, and current and future weather conditions. Farmers and crop consultants must make these management decisions within a regulatory environment that is becoming more restrictive and complex. Regulators are forced to make policy recommendations without sufficient understanding of the environmental processes they are attempting to regulate. In short, evaluating alternative management strategies that account for the broad variability in agro-ecosystems can be difficult given the complex processes impacting soils and crops within climatic conditions and farming practices. Dynamic, process modeling can be an effective tool for assisting farmers in effective management strategies to enhance profitability while protecting the environment. This project will evaluate developing a tool to provide crop consultants, farm managers, natural resource mangers and policy makers with the technical resources needed for the evaluation of best management practices and site-specific applications. This tool will utilize geographic information system (GIS) capabilities to capture spatial and temporal variability in agricultural, environmental, and climatic conditions, and will be implemented within a user interface on the internet.