# Presentation: 622556

## Preserving Dairy Farm Economies and Environmental Quality:  A Comparative Study of Tools From New York, Wisconsin, and Elsewhere

- John M. Norman
- Department of Soil Science
- September 23, 2003

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Purpose:**_  To put the results of modern agricultural research on crop production and environmental contamination into the hands of consultants and farm managers to assist in daily decision-making?
_**Developers:**_  Christine Molling, Chris Kucharik, 	Charles Rodgers, Cristine Morgan, Mark 	Stelford, John Norman
_**Contact Persons:**_  Christine Molling, John Norman
_**Stage of Development:**_  Early stages of program development

## Question?

**Maximizing production is a straight-forward and focused goal that agricultural research has successfully addressed.**
**Characterizing the tradeoff between productivity and environmental degradation is more difficult,and the traditional strategy of field-trials that focus on a single variable (namely yield) will NOT work!  Traditional statistical methods require lots of data that we do not now have and may never have.  We must exploit cause-based relationships that are embodied in models, much like engineering does.**
**Can we overcome traditional biases against the usefulness of modeling and form alliances among basic researchers, extension agents, consultants, industry and farmers to create products that will assist in the good management of farms?**
**The time may be right with PRECISION FARMING!**

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Purpose:**_  To put the results of modern agricultural research on crop production and environmental contamination into the hands of consultants and farm managers to assist in daily decision-making?
_**Developers:**_  Christine Molling, Chris Kucharik, 	Charles Rodgers, Cristine Morgan, Mark 	Stelford, John Norman
_**Contact Persons:**_  Christine Molling, John Norman
_**Stage of Development:**_  Early stages of program development

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Focus:**_  Crops (corn, soybean and alfalfa) and 	variability of soils over individual fields
_**Scale:**_  Primarily field scale up to 100 ha with spatial 	resolution of about 10 m.
_**Primary Area of Concern:**_
- 	Environmental effects of nitrate leaching, 	runoff, erosion and phosphorus losses.
- 	Farm logistics related to planting, site specific 	management and optimal harvest timing

## Landscape variability results in variable yield.

**But yield varies differently in different years!**

**Observed corn yield 1999**

**Observed corn yield 2000**

**Bushels per acre**

**Traditional crop and hydrologic models can’t simulate variability on this scale.  We need precision models to go along with our precision farming technology.**

- ©CCMolling, 2002

**Notes:**
...yield variability.
Yet the relationships are not so clear.  Weather plays a complicating role, producing large yields in some part of the field on one year, yet small yields the next.
   You see a perfect example in these two figures.  Shown is the harvested corn yield in 1999 and 2000.  During 1999 the largest yields were in the lower part of the field where moisture was consistently available.  In 2000, flooding occurred and killed all the corn plants in the closed depression.  The highest yields were up on the slopes, where topsoil was moderately thick, but where ponding did not occur.
   Precision agriculture attempts to address the different requirements of each part of the field.
   But, because it would take many years of data to produce the relationships among soil, weather, nutrients, tillage, and yield, and link that to issues of localized runoff, leaching, and ponding, traditional yield-oriented crop models and drainage basin-oriented hydrologic models aren’t up to the task.
   Management guidance by precision models are a necessary part of precision agriculture.

## Depth to till

**cm**

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Focus:**_  Crops (corn, soybean and alfalfa) and 	variability of soils over individual fields
_**Scale:**_  Primarily field scale up to 100 ha with spatial 	resolution of about 10 m.
_**Primary Area of Concern:**_
- 	Environmental effects of nitrate leaching, 	runoff, erosion and phosphorus losses.
- 	Farm logistics related to planting, site specific 	management and optimal harvest timing

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Intended Users:**_  Primary goal is crop consultants who work directly with farmers, but a secondary emphasis is directed toward researchers who could add to the functionality.
_**Format:**_  Fortran program with a Windows user interface that links program inputs and outputs to a GIS; currently ARCGIS.
_**Documentation:**_  User manual intended for the crop consultant who is computer literate.  Currently documentation does not include equations and references, which are extensive.  Publications are being submitted to document new parts of the model, but many aspects make use of equations and concepts from the literature.

## PALMS Development and Dissemination

**PALMS Development and ****Dissemination**

**Consultants**

**Growers**

**Researchers**

**Extension**

**Industry**

**Software**
**Company****?**

## PALMS Provides Decision Support

**PALMS Provides Decision Support**

- Tillage Strategy

- Profitability

- Marketing Decisions Return on Investment Time & Risk Management

- Equipment Sizing

- Improve Yield

- Harvest Timing

- Reduce Environmental Impact

**Notes:**
Spatial data can be used by growers to make a wide variety of short term and long term decisions.

PALM provides a way to distill all the available data into information on which a grower can act.

PALM is geared toward agriculture, but spatial data can be used in many other applications to aid decision-making.

The success of a tool such as PALM depends on a users ability to get  information in and out of the model quickly and cheaply.

##  Recommendation Tool for the Consultant

** ****Recommendation Tool for the Consultant**

**Hybrid Selection**

**Equipment Sizing**

**Environmental Impact**

**Variable rate application and seeding ****(N removal and carryover, yield capacity)**

**Notes:**
Consultants can use PALMS at a more advanced level.  They can explore the benefits and drawbacks of different kinds of management before recommending those changes.

They can determine a fine-tuned maximum yield capacity of each part of a field in order to recommend fertilizer and seeding rates.

Consultants can use PALMS to study a farmers fields with many years of weather data, and use that information to recommend equipment size, and best suited hybrids.

## PALMS Graphical User Interface 

- ©CCMolling, 2002

**Java graphical user interface**
**FORTRAN executable**
**Java data browser**
**Runs on ordinary PC**

**Notes:**
I mentioned before that PALMS is Java based, which means the user interface is mostly point and click - easy to use if you are familiar with personal computers.

##  Research Tool for the Scientist

**Environmental Impact**

**Instrument Placement**

**Quantify Landscape Processes and Variability Associated With them ****SOILS**

**Notes:**
Scientists can use PALMS to guide and supplement research activities:
PALMS can help the scientist choose where to place instrumentation, by locating places of greatest/least runoff, infiltration, yield, soil carbon accumulation, etc.

Scientists can use PALMS to investigate the short and long term environmental impact of new management techniques, or new combinations of techniques.

PALMS can help extend BMPs formed on research plots to other soil types and landscape forms.

Researchers can also use PALMS to investigate the potential effects of climate change on agricultural systems.

And more...

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Intended Users:**_  Primary goal is crop consultants who work directly with farmers, but a secondary emphasis is directed toward researchers who could add to the functionality.
_**Format:**_  Fortran program with a Windows user interface that links program inputs and outputs to a GIS; currently ARCGIS.
_**Documentation:**_  User manual intended for the crop consultant who is computer literate.  Currently documentation does not include equations and references, which are extensive.  Publications are being submitted to document new parts of the model, but many aspects make use of equations and concepts from the literature.

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Geographic Area:**_  PALMS is a process-level model designed to work in virtually any agricultural field.
_**Merge & Share Data With Other Tools:**_  Inputs and outputs are currently stand-alone files but a major effort is underway to use ARCGIS as data base.  Sharing with tools compatible with ARCGIS should be possible; for example, SST software.
_**Inputs:  **_

## PALMS Inputs

**PALMS Inputs**

** ****Weather - **on-site weather station or from web: easy; relatively cheap; currently available.
-  **Crops and Management -** record keeping: easy; cheap.
** ****Topography - **a few cm accuracy required, need differential GPS survey: more expensive; currently available.
** ****3-D Soil Map - **SIYM: easy; cheap; inferred. Penetrometer, conductivity, coring: more expensive; higher quality.  Neither widely available at this time.

- ©CCMolling, 2002

**Notes:**
The quality of the PALMS output is only as good as the data used as input.  High quality data usually means spending a lot of time and money.  There are ways to reduce data costs without too much sacrifice in quality.
   Hourly weather data is fairly easy to obtain and relatively inexpensive.  Much of it can be obtained free on the web.  Accurate precipitation is important, as precipitation is spatially quite variable. Best to install a rain gage on your field.

The farm manager can provide most of the crops and management information needed by PALMS.  Hybrid characteristics are provided in most seed company brochures.

Accurate topography (within a few cm) is essential for the runoff routine.  This can be obtained with high end differential GPS equipment.  Selected counties have high resolution Digital Elevation Model data, but it’s not necessarily easy to obtain.

The 3-D soil map is the most difficult to obtain with ordinary methods.  Soil survey maps typically do not include enough detail below the surface.  Two options exist: the Simple Inverse Yield Model and in-field sampling techniques.

## GPS  Topography

**Only 1.4m of relief in 100 m**

**< 0.1 m precision**

## Quantifying Pedological Information: 

*Field Measurements & Statistics*

- Soil Coring and Measurements of Properties

## Quantifying Pedological Information: 

- Zhu, Morgan, & Norman, 2003

- Landscape Survey sensors, Remote sensing, Topography

- Quantifying Pedological Information:
*Multi-scale Spatial Model*

## Quantifying Pedological Information: 

- cm

- Quantifying Pedological Information:
*Multi-scale Spatial Model*

- Zhu, Morgan, & Norman, 2003

- 4 cm

- 12 cm

- 4 cm

- _Measurement errors:_

## Quantifying Pedological Information: 

- Depth-to-till

- Standard Deviation

- Quantifying Pedological Information:
*Multi-scale Spatial Model*

- Three information sources combined:

- cm

- cm

- Zhu, Morgan, & Norman, 2003

## Quantifying Pedological Information: 

- A

- Bt

- 2C

- Btg

- Texture

- Ksat, Water retention function, Bulk density

- Quantifying Pedological Information:
*Pedotransfer functions*

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Production Outputs:**_  Yield maps, trafficability, soil moisture distribution vertically and horizontally, Optimal harvest date, ice content, ground water levels, soil temperature, crop water use, ponding, plant stress effects, aeration . . .
_**Environmental Outputs: **_ Nitrate leaching, drainage, runoff and soon to have erosion and phosphorus loss in runoff._**  **_
_**Economic outputs:**_  None yet, but intend to include economic costs of various strategies to reduce environmental impact.

## Waunakee Field (30 Ha)

**1999**

**1998**

**4.5**

**6.75**

**9**

**11.25**

**13.5**

- Waunakee Field (30 Ha)

- Yield (t/ha)

## Trafficability: Spring

**Trafficability: Spring**

**May 17**

**May 22**

**May 27**

**Negligible **
**Compaction**

**~10% Yield**
**Loss**

**Not**
**Passable**

## Spring Soil Moisture 1999, 2000

**1999**

**2000**

- Days since April 1st

- Hill location

- Depression location

## Predicted Yield in 1999 and 2000

**1999**

**2000**

- Bushels per Acre

## Measured Yield in 1999 and 2000

**Corn yield in 1999**

**Corn yield in 2000**

**Bushels per acre**

## Measured Yield in 1999 and 2000

**Corn yield in 1999**

**Corn yield in 2000**

**Bushels per acre**

## Comparisons, 2000 

**Comparisons, 2000**

- ©CCMolling, 2002

- Ponded water, 6/2/2002

**Hill**

**Depression**

-  stderr < 5% VWC
- runoff too high - need macropore infiltration
- ponding good match

**Notes:**
I’d like to give you an overview of software being designed at UW-Madison: Precision Agricultural-Landscape Modeling System.  This model is the result of collaboration among researchers from the Department of Soil Science (J. Norman and friends), Space Science and Engineering Center (G. Diak, C. Molling), the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (C. Kucharik, J. Foley), and Mark Stelford of Case New Holland.

Current funding comes from NASA’s Regional Earth Science Applications Center Program and Case New Holland.

I’ll give a brief overview of the purpose, capabilities and structure of PALMS, with some examples of results

And lastly I’ll mention some applications of PALMS for farmers, consultants, and scientists. 

## Dry-Down of Grain Moisture to Determine Harvest Date

- Sept. 23, 1999

- Oct. 1, 1999

- Sept. 23, 2000

- Oct. 1, 2000

## Dry-Down of Grain Moisture to Determine Harvest Date

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Production Outputs:**_  Yield maps, trafficability, soil moisture distribution vertically and horizontally, Optimal harvest date, ice content, ground water levels, soil temperature, crop water use, ponding, plant stress effects, aeration . . .
_**Environmental Outputs: **_ Nitrate leaching, drainage, runoff and soon to have erosion and phosphorus loss in runoff._**  **_
_**Economic outputs:**_  None yet, but intend to include economic costs of various strategies to reduce environmental impact.

## Simulated vs. Measured Annual NO3-N Leaching Loss at Arlington, WI

- Simulated *vs.* Measured Annual NO3-N Leaching Loss at Arlington, WI

## IBIS Simulated Monthly Total NO3-N Leaching Loss at Arlington

- IBIS Simulated Monthly Total NO3-N Leaching Loss at Arlington

## PALMS Drainage since May 1, 1999

**PALMS Drainage since May 1, 1999**

- Numbers on contoured
- landscape are rainfall
- since May 1, 1999

**May 17**

**May 22**

**May 27**

**74 mm**

**78 mm**

**92 mm**

## Runoff Index for Arlington Field

**Runoff Index for Arlington Field**

## Ratio of Infiltration to Rainfall – May 31, 2000

**Ratio of Infiltration to Rainfall – May 31, 2000**

- LOW

- HIGH

## Cumulative Ratio of Infiltration to Rainfall

**Cumulative Ratio of Infiltration to Rainfall**
**April 1, 2000 – July 9, 2000**

- LOW

- HIGH

- 0.7

- 1.0

- 2.5

## Arlington, Wisconsin

- Rainfall  2000

- Runoff Events  2000

- N-S Chisel Plow

- Runoff Events  2000

- Contour Ridge Till

## 4 “

- Rainfall  2000

- Runoff Events  2000

- N-S Chisel Plow

- 1.5 “

- Rainfall  1999

- Runoff Events  1999

- N-S Chisel Plow

## 3.0 “

- Rainfall  1993

- Runoff Events  1993

- N-S Chisel Plow

- 0.5 “

- Rainfall  1988

- Runoff Events  1988

- N-S Chisel Plow

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Production Outputs:**_  Yield maps, trafficability, soil moisture distribution vertically and horizontally, Optimal harvest date, ice content, ground water levels, soil temperature, crop water use, ponding, plant stress effects, aeration . . .
_**Environmental Outputs: **_ Nitrate leaching, drainage, runoff and soon to have erosion and phosphorus loss in runoff._**  **_
_**Economic outputs:**_  None yet, but intend to include economic costs of various strategies to reduce environmental impact.

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Tool Limitations: **_ Not yet available, Extensive inputs especially for the soil and topography, it’s new.
_**Why was the tool designed?**_ To bring state-of-the-art research on both crop production and environmental protection within reach of the farmer through extension and consultants.

## We believe that two key issues are central to

- understanding the production/environment tradeoff

**Spatial variability of **
**soil properties**

**Temporal variability**
**of precipitation**

**Linked by surface**
**Runoff in ****PALM**

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Track Record for Nutrients in the Environment:**_  Only nitrate leaching and phosphorus runoff are currently being developed.  Being an optimist, I think the results will be reliable.
- Validations of nitrate leaching, soil water distributions, yield, and some grain moisture content have been done with generally good results.
- The developers have been the only users to date.
_**Meet Regulatory Requirements?**_  It does not produce a nutrient management plan, but intended to assist with design and placement of buffers to reduce P losses from fields without costing farmers or state too much.

## Precision Agricultural Landscape Modeling System (PALMS)

_**Future:**_  Currently we are conducting field measurements of runoff, erosion and phosphorus losses on four farm fields with Discovery Farms to test PALMS and assist the Wisconsin Buffer Initiative.  In addition we are studying runoff, erosion and P losses from four fields at Arlington and working with UW-Platteville on an up-slope, in-field structure to reduce erosion and P losses from a field.
- This is an ambitious project to assist with the creation of science-based guidelines for the implementation of regulations to limit phosphorus losses from farm fields.
- PALMS is well suited to exploiting remote sensing and we would like to do more of this.

## DisALEXI

**ER01**

**ER05**

**ER09**

**ER13**

**DisALEXI**
**30-m Et Map of El Reno**
**Site – Pasture**
**& Wheat**
**July 2, 1997**

**ER01**

**ER05**

**ER09**

**ER13**

## ER13

**Evapotranspiration in W/m****2 ****by Remote Sensing**
**Each pixel is 30m by 30m in size.**
**July 2, 1997**

**ER13**

- Eddy Flux
- Measurement Site

## PALMS Development and Dissemination

**PALMS Development and ****Dissemination**

**Basic**
**Research**

**Grants**

**Publications**

**Peer**
**Review**

**Three Separate Worlds**

**Client**
**Review**

**Profit**

**Innovation**