11/17/2014 10:14:43 AM
Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth but too much nitrogen can cause impairment of groundwater and other water bodies. When farmers apply nitrogen fertilizers to help their crops, they can minimize the loss of the fertilizer to groundwater in the fall if the fertilizer applications are made after soils cool to 50 degrees. Waiting until soils reach this temperature has a dual benefit of improving fertilizer use efficiency and protecting water quality.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) supports farmers and their agribusiness advisors in making informed decisions on when to fertilize in the fall by providing soil temperatures in an online Soil Temperature map.
The map provides the soil temperature at a depth of 6 using data from several soil probes around Minnesota. When clicked, the point on the map shows the most recent temperature at the soil probe and a seven-day temperature trend chart. The map gets high usage during the fall when farmers are trying to identify the best window of time in which to apply fertilizer.
The story behind this map is one of cross-agency collaboration driven by business needs. Russ Derickson, an Agricultural Advisor in the Pesticide and Fertilizer Management Division of MDA, knew that it would be valuable to provide soil temperatures to farmers. He also knew that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) operated stream level gauging stations throughout the state in a Cooperative Stream Gauge Network initiated by DNR, MPCA, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the National Weather Service. Russ investigated and learned that the stream gauging stations had the capacity to collect soil temperature information.
The data collected from soil probes are transmitted to the DNR in real time and are then shared on theDNR/MPCA Cooperative Stream Gaging webpage through an interactive map, providing a useful way for information to be browsed by users. The developers of this site at DNR and MPCA were forward-thinking in their approach and they serve the data in such a way that the data can be easily queried and accessed by other websites. This allowed MNIT @ MDA to create quickly a single purpose interactive map based on the soil temperature data.
The physical soil temperature probes, data collection and transmission, and web services all were built upon existing systems and so were done with a low additional cost to MDA. However, this low cost input resulted in a high impact benefit - supporting farmers and their partners with improved decision making. MDA estimates the potential benefit in savings to Minnesota farmers in the form of reduced fertilizer loss could be between $750,000 to $1.1 million (based on 2009 data).
So, through collaboration and at minimum cost, the capacity of an existing state system was expanded to provide Minnesota farmers current on demand information on which to base crop management decisions. Farmers benefit with better fertilizer management and all Minnesotans benefit with improved water quality protection.
Involvement in project:
Digital Government
