TiSDat
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This is not your father's farming.
Even at the scale of the family farm, agriculture is increasingly becoming a business where daily decisions regarding irrigation, the application of pesticides and fertilizers, and crop protection against frost damage often make the difference between profit and loss.
These same decisions can also make a significant impact on the environment, the prospect for future growing seasons, and overall quality of life.
In a NASA project called TiSDat (Timely Satellite Data), University of Wisconsin scientists-in collaboration with the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association and the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association-are developing management decision aids that derive much of their power from satellite data, available on the Internet soon after collection.
These aids are designed to improve agricultural and environmental management decisions using satellite data of farmland. TiSDat has four specific projects:
- making irrigation schedules more efficient
- predicting power needs of farmland irrigation to help utility companies make power generation decisions
- estimating the duration of leaf wetness to help predict foliar disease in potatoes
- predicting freezing temperatures to help protect cranberry crops from frost damage
With TiSDat assisting agricultural managers in daily decisions, pesticide usage is reduced, energy is saved, and potential water-quality impacts of crop production are minimized.
TiSDat's Agricultural Applications Include:
Irrigation Scheduling
Irrigation is an essential practice on sandy soils, and in agricultural regions
where rainfall is limited. Excessive irrigation, however, leads to leaching
of nitrogen and pesticides from the soil into the groundwater. It also results
in increased electrical demand to pump the irrigation water, which often coincides
with the peak seasonal demand for air conditioning. To know how much irrigation
is necessary, farmers need to have an idea of how much water their crops extract
from the soil during the course of a day, and how much water to apply to replenish
this soil moisture supply. TiSDat provides satellite data for high-quality
estimates of solar energy at the surface (insolation) required for these irrigation
products and with much greater spatial detail and cost-effectiveness.
Frost Protection of High-Value Crops
In Wisconsin, 13,000 acres of cultivated cranberries are the major frost-protection
challenge. With a per-acre value of nearly $6,000, these cranberry regions
were a hands-down choice for the prototype frost protection product. One of
the most important indicators of a pending overnight frost is the cloudiness
of a region. When clouds are present, much less of the heat at the Earth's
surface can escape to space, so the air near the surface stays warmer and
the chance of frost is reduced. TiSDat's frost protection product provides
a combination of satellite data and standard measurements of air temperature,
humidity, and wind speed made at the Earth's surface. Several computer-forecast
models of the atmosphere are also used to predict whether or not freezing
temperatures will occur overnight.
Plant Disease Management
Intensive disease protection and insect management are imperative with high-value
crops such as potatoes, onions, green beans, and sweet corn. Plant diseases
are often linked to microclimates within the crop canopy, such as the duration
of the presence of free water (from dew, rain, or irrigation on leaves). Better
data and management techniques allow reduced applications of pesticides with
economic benefits to the farmer and reduced environmental impacts. TiSDat
will apply data and models discussed on these pages to the improved prediction
of free water amounts for the plant canopy.
Curator: Randolph Kim
Responsible NASA Official: Mark
Leon
Last Updated: 07/02/2002
