Source: PURDUE UNIVERSITY submitted to
USEFUL TO USABLE (U2U): TRANSFORMING CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGE INFORMATION FOR CEREAL CROP PRODUCERS
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0224375
Grant No.
2011-68002-30220
Project No.
IND011541G1
Proposal No.
2015-02326
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
A3141
Project Start Date
Apr 15, 2011
Project End Date
Apr 14, 2017
Grant Year
2015
Project Director
Prokopy, L.
Recipient Organization
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
WEST LAFAYETTE,IN 47907
Performing Department
Forestry & Natural Resources
Non Technical Summary
Agricultural crops contribute about $150 billion annually to the U.S. economy, most of which comes from the intensely cultivated Midwest (USDA-ERA, 2010). The viability of this industry is affected by increasingly variable climate patterns. Our project, Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, seeks to improve the resilience and profitability of farms amid variable climate changes by providing stakeholders with better decision support tools (DSTs), such as predictive climate models, delivered more effectively. We will produce research on the biophysical and economic impacts of different climate scenarios on corn and soybean yields in the North Central Region (objective 1) and conduct complementary research to understand how producers and advisors are likely to use this information (objective 2). Based on our findings, we will develop DSTs and training materials to deliver climate information to our various stakeholders (objective 3). We will pilot these DSTs, evaluate their effectiveness and continue to improve the tools and training materials in four states (objective 4). After several iterations with stakeholders to ensure the usability and utility of the tools, we will extend the program to all twelve states in the region and develop additional resources for 4-H programs (objective 5). Our DSTs, along with training products, surveys, feedback mechanisms and collaborative social tools, will be supported using Purdue's HUBzero technology.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
20%
Applied
40%
Developmental
40%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1321510207025%
1321510301020%
1321510308025%
1330430207010%
1330430301010%
1330430308010%
Knowledge Area
133 - Pollution Prevention and Mitigation; 132 - Weather and Climate;

Subject Of Investigation
1510 - Corn; 0430 - Climate;

Field Of Science
2070 - Meteorology and climatology; 3010 - Economics; 3080 - Sociology;
Goals / Objectives
Overarching goal: Improve the resilience and profitability of farms in the North Central Region amid variable climate change through the development of dissemination of decision support tools, resource materials and training. This goal will be accomplished through the following five objectives: 1. Use existing data to develop a knowledge base of potential biophysical and economic impacts related to climate changes and consider the relative risks they pose. 2. Understand how producers make decisions under uncertain climate projections, what type of information they need to make better decisions, and what are effective methods for disseminating usable knowledge to them and larger agricultural networks. 3. Develop tools, training materials, and implementation approaches that lead to more effective decision-making and adoption of practices associated with farms resilient to climate variability. 4. Evaluate the effectiveness of the tools, training materials, and implementation approaches for corn/soybean producers in four pilot states (Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Michigan). 5. Broadly disseminate validated training materials, tools, and extension programs to ensure increased usefulness and usability of climate information.
Project Methods
Objective 1 will be accomplished by: 1) creating simulation of regional crop productivity as affected by historical and projected future climate series for the period 1990 through 2010; 2) assessing relations between yiels and anomalous (below normal/ above normal) climatic (seasonal/ sub-seasonal temperature and rainfall) conditions to develop a modeling DST for future seasonal outlook, yield guidance, and potential economic impacts; 3)developing gridded (approx. 10km) dataset for regional soil moisture, soil temperature, and evapotranspiration mapping for hydrological-climatic assessments (e.g. droughts and floods), and agricultural applications; 4)analyzing temporal trends of observed and simulated agro-climatological variables during both historical and projected future time frames; and 5) investigating potential adaptive strategies for maximizing agronomic productivity and reduction of climate-related risk and adaptive needs for a changing climate. Objective 2 will be accomplished by: 1) conducting needs assessments of cereal crop producers and advisors in four pilot states; 2) conducting a stakeholder network analysis; 3) holding follow-up focus groups with cereal crop producers and their advisors; and 4) doing a needs assessment of Extension educators through the 12 state North Central Region. Objective 3 will consist of developing Decision Support Tools and a delivery system for these tools based on the results from objectives 1 and 2. Objective 4 entails conducting outreach in four pilot states and then evaluating the effectiveness of the Decision Support Tools, training methods, and implementation approaches. Objective 5 consists of a regional expansion workshop which will bring together extension and outreach educators from across the 12 state region. This workshop will be evaluated as part of this objective. Evaluation of this grant will include process, output, outcome, and impact evaluation. A process evaluation will monitor the degree to which the grant is carried out as intended. The program's output will be monitored to describe the program's activities and products, participants, and degree of involvement. The effectiveness of this program will be evaluated as well through the measurement of learning gains, attitude change, and behavior change associated with intended program impacts. Although each study within this evaluation will be analyzed separately for its own findings each, as part of a larger intervention system, will be assessed in relationship to the others to strengthen reliability in the overall findings. The process, output, and outcome data will be used to inform and improve the performance of the program while the impact evaluation will determine the degree to which the program benefits its participants.

Progress 04/15/11 to 04/14/17

Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period our efforts reached the following target audiences: Midwestern corn farmers, public and private sector agricultural advisors (including Extension educators), climate and social science researchers Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?U2U team members participated in 165 outreach events from 2013-2016 to train farmers and public/private agricultural advisors on using U2U decision support tools. Several of these events provided participants with continuing education/certification credits. The U2U decision tools have been used to supplement classroom instruction at various institutions across the Corn Belt. Trevor Frank and Bruce Erickson, instructors for a Purdue University agronomy course (AGRY 105), developed a lab assignment centered on the U2UDST Suite. This lab was constructed to provide introductory Agronomy students with a knowledge base of farming technology and available agricultural decision-making tools. The lab focused on students learning about available technology for predicting climate variability, growing degree days, nitrogen fertilizer rates, cover crop selection, and market outlooks. Additionally, students were expected to gain insight on how to incorporate large-scale data for on-farm decision-making. A copy of this lab assignment has been published on the U2U website, available at https://mygeohub.org/resources/1047. Otto Doering used the U2U Corn Split NDST with students in his sustainable farming systems course titled "Decisions Through Systems Analysis" at Purdue University. Students used the tool to compared different locations, climate regimes, and changes in the farming scale andoperation. Two professors at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities have used the U2UDST Suite in their 4000-level agronomic management course to enhance students' data literacy and communication skills (see side bar on this page for details). An Extension agronomist who teaches at Vincennes University will be using the U2U Corn GDDDST in one of his classes to teach students about growing degree days and crop development states. The team maintains the U2U Educational Resources webpage (agclimate4u.org/kit) to help educators learn about U2U decision tools and provide them with quick access to informational materials (user guides, factsheets, PowerPoints, etc.) that will help them disseminate U2U tools to their clients. Over 360 people have signed up to receive these materials. The U2U Corn Split N tool has been approved as a training resource for the Indiana Pesticide Application Recertification Program (PARP) (https://ag.purdue.edu/extension/ppp/Pages/educator.aspx). Every farm spraying restricted use pesticides or applying specific quantities of manure in Indiana are required to receive two hours of PARP educational training in addition to meeting regulatory requirements. Farmers can now use the Corn Split N tool training materials to fulfill these educational requirements. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We disseminated U2U decision support tools and other project research to our target audiences using a variety of outlets including outreach events, scientific conferences, journal articles and Extension publications, our website, our blog, Twitter, and our quarterly newsletter. U2U team members have conducted outreach at 165 events and presented 162 research presentations at 105 scientific meetings/conferences. Fifty peer-reviewed journal articles have been published. Fourteen editions of the U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter were disseminated, and the newsletter listincluded 1,700 subscribers. U2U research and DSTs have been featured in over 170 articles in the popular press, trade journals, and University Extension newsletters. Our website accrued over 165,500 pageviews from over 42,500 site users. The U2U Twitter account (@AgClimate4U) gained 775 followers, 1265 retweets, 934 likes, and 538,739 impressions since its launch in May 2014 (ending April 14, 2017). Our four-part print and online media campaign reach an estimated 35,600 people. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Over the 6-year project duration, we developed 5 decision support tools, published 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, conducted 165 outreach events, shared results at 105 scientific conferences, raised $860,000 in additional funding by leveraging U2U outputs, and received national and local recognitions for excellence. Our work has been publicized in over 170 news articles in the popular press and trade publications, and our website has been view by more than 42,500 site users. Our team used crop models to identify the impacts of weather and climate on past and future corn production, and we investigated potential adaptive strategies for maximizing productivity and reducing risks from biophysical and economic perspectives (Obj. 1). We developed new knowledge about farmers' and advisors' climate information needs and how their attitudes and beliefs might influence their willingness to adapt to climate change (Objective 2). Five decision tools were developed based on user-identified information needs and transferred to the Midwestern and High Plains Regional Climate Centers to ensure long term availability (Objective 3). One hundred and sixty-five outreach sessions were conducted with key stakeholders (Objectives 4 and 5). Project evaluation results show that U2U tools have been used to support decisions on over 15.5 million acres in the Midwest. Because of the U2U tools, 52% of advisors and 44% of farmers who used at least one tool reported they are more likely to use weather and climate information in their job. Overall, we anticipate that long-term use of the U2U tools and other climate-based decision aids will result in more profitable agricultural production systems across the Corn Belt with greater resilience to climate variability and change. Obj 1: Our research activities have led to the development of a new crop model within the Integrated Science Assessment Model (ISAM) and the Noah-MP land surface model, and significant improvement of the Purdue Crop/Livestock Program (PCLP) economic model (Song et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2016; Gramig et al., 2014). Our crop modeling teams have evaluated the utility of simplistic crop models for agro-climatic studies (Liu et al., 2015; Niyogi et al., 2015) and developed the Purdue Agro-Climatic Dataset (PAC) to support high resolution crop modeling across the Midwest (Liu et al., 2017; Niyogi et al., 2017). Team members used the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) model to derive a number of historical simulated crop and climate output series from both gridded and single site simulations to identify the physical impacts of weather and climate on corn production as well as spatial and temporal trends across the region. In addition to using crop model simulations to assess historical trends, our researchers also analyzed observed data to identify climate trends and subsequent agricultural impacts (Dai et al., 2015; Kellner and Niyogi, 2015). To assess potential crop yield impacts under future climate scenarios the DSSAT-based CERES-Maize crop model was run at the 18 single project sites for a variety of time slices, NARCCAP-derived Regional Climate Model (RCM) projections, and GCM-based climate projections. Additional research focused on conducting farm-level economic case studies to evaluate the performance of management strategies under various climate scenarios, allowing profit-maximizing adaptations to be identified. We built an analytical framework and dataset capable of evaluating whether an expansion of areas where irrigation is profitable (may become commonplace) can be expected under climate changes predicted by mid-century (2041-2070). Obj 2:Our unprecedented surveys of Corn Belt farmers and agricultural advisor groups has improved scientific understanding about the climate information needs, climate change beliefs, trusted information sources, and risk management strategies of the agricultural community. Overviews of key findings were published in Arbuckle et al. (2013) and Prokopy et al. (2013). Also from the producer and advisor surveys we have extracted a great deal of information about differences in climate change beliefs across the agricultural sector and about improving our strategy for climate change communication (Arbuckle et al., 2014; Prokopy and Morton et al., 2015; Carlton et al., 2016, Mase et al., 2017). We clearly documented the role of agricultural advisors in guiding on-farm management decisions and their role as climate information brokers (Prokopy et al., 2013; Prokopy et al., 2014; Lemos et al., 2014; Haigh et al., 2015; Prokopy and Carlton et al., 2015; Davidson et al., 2015; Prokopy and Power, 2015). The following activities have been completed: 1) Producer Climate Needs Assessment (2012), conducted in partnership with the Sustainable Corn Project, to understand concerns about climate impacts, climate information needs, climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes, and trust in various information sources. 2) Advisor Climate Needs Assessment 1 (2012). 3) Advisor Climate Needs Assessment 2 (2013), follow-up survey. 4) Twelve focus groups with farmers, public advisors, and private advisors in Nebraska and Indiana from July 2012 - Dec 2013. 5) 20 corn farmers and 9 advisors surveyed in 2013-14 in the Maple River watershed in Michigan regarding information diffusion. Obj 3: We developed 5 DSTs. AgClimate ViewDST provides access to customized historical climate and crop yield data for the Corn Belt. Corn GDDDST allows you to track real-time and historical growing degree day (GDD) accumulations, assess spring and fall frost risk, and guide decisions related to planting, harvest, and seed selection. Climate Patterns ViewerDST helps you determine how global climate patterns can local climate conditions across the Corn Belt. Corn Split NDST can be used to determine the feasibility and profitability of using post-planting nitrogen application for corn production. Irrigation InvestmentDST lets you explore the profitability of installing irrigation equipment at user-selected locations across the Corn Belt. U2U team members have contributed substantial new knowledge to the scientific community on the current and potential uses of climate information in agricultural decision making, and guidance for improving climate forecasts for agricultural production (Mase and Prokopy, 2014; Takle et al., 2014; Haigh and Takle et al., 2015). Biehl et al. (2017) describes the cyberinfrastructure framework developed and applied to support the U2U project research and applications, and provides descriptions of the five U2U decision support tools. Other publications describing the technical aspects of U2U tools include Angel et al. (2017), Gramig et al. (2017), and Kellner and Niyogi (2015). Obj 4/5:We conducted 165 DST outreach events from 2013-16 with farmers and advisors. Outreach evaluation surveys were administered at 32 events to assess the likelihood of tool use within the next year and learning outcomes. Online usability tests with technical experts and people within the public were conducted. A four-round media campaign was conducted from March 2015 - Nov 2016 to build awareness of the U2U tools and increase the number of website users, reaching 35,600 people. Numerous educational materials were developed. Two end-of-project evaluation surveys and 20 interviews with advisors measured U2U project success and overall impact. Results show widespread success of the U2U project's outreach efforts. About 35% of advisors (across the 12-state region) and 34% of farmers (in the four states with the most outreach) had heard about at least one U2U tool. Thirty-three percent of advisors and 34% of farmers who had heard about U2U tools have used one or more U2U tools in their decision making.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Angel, J. 2016. U2U Decision Support Tools for Midwestern Corn Producers. 96th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. New Orleans, LA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Barlage, M., Liu, X., Chen, F., and D. Niyogi. 2017. Development and Evaluation of a Simple Crop Model for WRF Seasonal Forecast Improvement. 97th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Haigh, T. 2017. The Map, the App, and the Graph: Farmers' Trust in, and Use of, Climate Information. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Henson, C., Market, P., Lupo, A., and P. Guinan. 2016. PDO Modulated ENSO Variability Impacting Regional Missouri Crop Yields. 96th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. New Orleans, LA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Klink, J., Koumdinya, V., Kies, K., Robinson, C., and A. Rao. 2016. Evaluating an Interdisciplinary Effort to Create and Promote Ag/climate Decision Support Tools. 96th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. New Orleans, LA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Koumdinya, V., Robinson, C., Rao, A., and J. Klink. 2016. Utilizing Online Technology Tools (usertesting.com, Google Analytics, ArcGIS Online and Smartsheet) to Support Evaluation. American Evaluation Association Annual Meeting. Atlanta, GA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Liu, X. 2016. Introducing Dynamic Crop Growth in the Noah-MP Land-Surface Model. National Center for Atmospheric Research RAL/DTC Seminar, Boulder, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Liu, X. and D. Niyogi. 2016. Interdisciplinary and Cross-scales Agroclimatic Assessment across The U.S. Corn Belt: What Have We Learnt? AgMIP Global Workshop. Montpellier, France.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Liu, X., Jacobs, E., Biehl, L., Kumar, A., and J. Andresen. 2017. An Agro-hydro-climatic dataset for the U.S. Corn Belt: Development, Validations and Applications. 97th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Mase, A. 2016. Soil, water, and resilience: U.S. Corn Belt advisors' perspectives on adoption of conservation practices. International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Houghton, MI.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Mase, A. and V. Koundinya. 2017. Evaluating a climate information DST coproduction process: Outcomes and impacts for Midwestern ag advisors. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Niyogi, D., Liu, X., Jacobs, E., and O. Kellner. 2017. Cross-Scales Agro-Hydro-Climatic Assessment and Crop Modeling Across the U.S. Corn Belt: What Have We Learnt? 97th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2016. U.S. Corn Belt Advisors' Perspectives on Their Role in Farmer Adoption of Conservation Practices. 71st Soil and Water Conservation Society International Annual Conference, Louisville, KY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2017. Co-Production in Agricultural and Natural Resource Systems: An Overview. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Robinson, C., Klink, J., and V. Koundinya. 2016. Evaluating a marketing campaign on a budget. 30th Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association, Atlanta, GA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Robinson, C., Klink, J., and V. Koundinya. 2017. Evaluating a marketing campaign on a budget. Joint Council of Extension Professionals (JCEP) Wisconsin Conference, Eau Claire, WI.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Singh, A. and L. Prokopy. 2017. A Need for Closure on Climate Change: An assessment of farmers' perceptions of climate uncertainty and their willingness to adapt. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Umphlett, N. 2016. Experiences with usability testing for improving climate-based decision tools. Weather & Climate Decision Tools for Farmers, Ranchers & Land Managers, Gainesville, FL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Van Dop, M., Gramig, B., and J.P. Sesmero. 2016. Irrigation Adoption, Groundwater Demand and Policy in the U.S. Corn Belt, 2040-2070. 2016 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting. Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Vishweshwer, A., Koundinya, V., Klink, J., Robinson, A., Singh, A., and T. Haigh. 2017. Enhancing Uptake of Climate Decision Support Tools Among Agricultural Community Through Comprehensive Project Evaluation. 97th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Widhalm, M., 2016. Useful to Usable: Improving Climate Information for Midwestern Growers and Agricultural Advisors. Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture Fall Seminar Series. West Lafayette, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Widhalm, M., Haigh, T., E. Takle, J. Andreson, J.S. Carlton, and J. Angel. 2016. Mapping Agricultural Decision Making across the U.S. Corn Belt. 96th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. New Orleans, LA.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Morton, L.W., L.S. Prokopy, J.G. Arbuckle, C. Ingels, M. Thelen, R. Bellm, D. Bowman, L. Edwards, C. Ellis, R. Higgins, T. Higgins, D. Hudgins, R. Hoormann, J. Neufelder, B. Overstreet, A. Peltier, H. Schmitz, J. Voit, C. Wegehaupt, S. Wohnoutka, R. Wolkowski, L.J. Abendroth, J. Angel, T. Haigh, C. Hart, J. Klink, R. Power, D. Todey, M. Widhalm. 2016. Climate Change and Agricultural Extension; Building capacity for land grant extension services to address the agricultural impacts of climate change and the adaptive management needs of agricultural stakeholders. Technical Report Series: Climate and Corn-based Cropping Systems Coordinated Agricultural Project Findings and Recommendations Vol 3 of 5. CSCAP Publication no. CSCAP-0192-2016.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Angel. J., M. Widhalm, D. Todey, R. Massey, and L. Biehl. 2017. The U2U Corn Growing Degree Day Tool: Tracking Corn Growth Across the US Corn Belt. Climate Risk Management 15: 73-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.10.002
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Biehl, L., L. Zhao, C.X. Song and C.G. Panza. 2017. Cyberinfrastructure for the Collaborative Development of U2U Decision Support Tools. Climate Risk Management 15: 90-108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.10.003
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Carlton, J.S., Mase, A.S., Knutson, C.L., Lemos, M.C., Haigh, T., Todey, D.P., and L.S. Prokopy. 2016. The effects of extreme drought on climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and adaptation attitudes. Climatic Change 135: 211-226. (DOI: 10.1007/s10584-015-1561-5)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Church, S.P., T. Haigh, M. Widhalm, S. Garcia de Jalon, N. Babin, S.J. Carlton, M. Dunn, K. Fagan, C.L. Knutson, and L.S. Prokopy. 2017. Agricultural trade publications and the 2012 Midwestern U.S. Drought: A missed opportunity for climate risk communication. Climate Risk Management 15: 45-60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.10.006
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Gramig, B.M., R. Massey, and S.D. Yun. 2017. Nitrogen application decision-making under climate risk in the U.S. Corn Belt. Climate Risk Management 15: 82-89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.09.001
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Kellner, O., D. Niyogi, and F.D. Marks. 2016. Land-falling Tropical System Rainfall Contribution to the Hydroclimate of the Eastern U.S. Corn Belt 1981-2012. Wea. and Clim. Extremes. 13: 54-67.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Klink, J., V. Koundinya, K. Kies, C. Robinson, A. Rao, C. Berezowitz, M. Widhalm, and L.S. Prokopy. 2017. Enhancing interdisciplinary climate change work through comprehensive evaluation. Climate Risk Management. 15: 109-125. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.11.003
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Liu, X., F Chen, M Barlage, D Niyogi. 2016. Noah-MP-Crop: Introducing Dynamic Crop Growth in the Noah-MP Land-Surface Model. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 121(23): 13,953-19,972.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Liu, X., E. Jacobs, A. Kumar, L. Biehl, J. Andresen, and D. Niyogi. 2017. The Purdue Agro-climatic (PAC) dataset for the U.S. Corn Belt: Development and Initial Results. Climate Risk Management 15:61-72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.10.005
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Mase, A.S., B. Gramig, and L.S. Prokopy. 2017. Climate Change Beliefs, Risk Perceptions, and Adaptation Behavior among Midwestern U.S. Crop Farmers. Climate Risk Management 15: 8-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.11.004
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017g. Interdisciplinary Team Success
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017h. Marketing Campaign Case Study
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2016a. 2016 Project Update.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2016b. DST Factsheet.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2016c. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Aug 2016.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2016d. U2U Irrigation Investment User Guide. September 2016.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2016e. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Nov 2016.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Dai, S. 2016. Interpreting Temperature- and Precipitation-related Scientific Information for the Agricultural Community In the U.S. Corn Belt. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Morton, L.W., J.M McGuire, and A.D. Cast. 2017. The good farmer pays attention to the weather. Climate Risk Management. 15: 18-31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.09.002
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Niyogi, D, E.M. Jacobs, X. Liu, A. Kumar, L.L. Biehl, and P.S.C. Rao. 2017. Long-term high resolution hydroclimatic dataset for the U.S. Midwest. Earth Interactions. 21 (4): 1-31. doi:10.1175/EI-D-16-0022.1
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., M.C. Lemos, M. Widhalm, J.S. Carlton, and T. Haigh. 2017. Useful to Usable: Developing usable climate science for agriculture. Climate Risk Management 15: 1-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.10.004
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Wilke, A.K. and L. W. Morton. 2017. Analog years: Connecting climate science and agricultural tradition to better manage landscapes of the future. Climate Risk Management. 15: 32-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2016.10.001
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017a. 2017 Project Update.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017b. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. May 2017.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017c. U2U Outputs and Impacts By the Numbers
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017d. Project Outcomes  Goals and Results
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017e. 2016 Evaluation Survey Results
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2017f. U2U Success Stories
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Van dop, M. 2016. Irrigation Adoption, Groundwater Demand and Policy in the U.S. Corn Belt, 2040-2070. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Purdue University.


Progress 04/15/15 to 04/14/16

Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period our efforts reached the following target audiences: Midwestern corn farmers, public and private sector agricultural advisors (including Extension educators), climate and social science researchers. In 2015 Estimated outreach contacts: 56,120 Website page views: 53,771 Number of website users: 13,104 E-Newsletter listserv: 1,120 members Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?U2U team members participated in at least 69 outreach events in 2015 to train farmers and public/private agricultural advisors on using U2U decision support tools. Several of these events provided participants with continuing education/certification credits. The U2U decision tools have been used to supplement classroom instruction at various institutions across the Corn Belt. Trevor Frank and Bruce Erickson, instructors for a Purdue University agronomy course (AGRY 105), developed a lab assignment centered on the U2UDST Suite. This lab was constructed to provide introductory Agronomy students with a knowledge base of farming technology and available agricultural decision-making tools. The lab focused on students learning about available technology for predicting climate variability, growing degree days, nitrogen fertilizer rates, cover crop selection, and market outlooks. Additionally, students were expected to gain insight on how to incorporate large-scale data for on-farm decision-making. A copy of this lab assignment has been published on the U2U website, available at https://mygeohub.org/resources/1047. Otto Doering used the U2U Corn Split NDST with students in his sustainable farming systems course titled "Decisions Through Systems Analysis" at Purdue University. Students used the tool to compared different locations, climate regimes, and changes in farming scale andoperation. Two professors at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities have used the U2UDST Suite in their 4000-level agronomic management course to enhance students' data literacy and communication skills. An Extension agronomist who teaches at Vincennes University will be using the U2U Corn GDDDST in one of his classes to teach students about growing degree days and crop development states. The team maintains the U2U Educational Resources webpage (agclimate4u.org/kit) to help educators learn about U2U decision tools and provide them with quick access to informational materials (user guides, factsheets, PowerPoints, etc.) that will help them disseminate U2U tools to their clients. Over 360 people have signed up to receive these materials. The U2U Corn Split N tool has been approved as a training resource for the Indiana Pesticide Application Recertification Program (PARP) (https://ag.purdue.edu/extension/ppp/Pages/educator.aspx). Every farm spraying restricted use pesticides or applying specific quantities of manure in Indiana are required to receive two hours of PARP educational training in addition to meeting regulatory requirements. Farmers can now use the Corn Split N tool training materials to fulfill these educational requirements. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?During this reporting period we disseminated U2U decision support tools and other project research to our target audiences using a variety of outlets including outreach events, scientific conferences, journal articles and Extension publications, our website, our blog, Twitter, and our quarterly newsletter. During 2015, U2U team members conducted outreach at 69 events and presented 35 research presentations at 19 scientific meetings/conferences. Nineteen journal articles were published in 2015. Three editions of the U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter were disseminated, and the newsletter list now exceeds 1,100 subscribers. U2U research and DSTs were featured in over 55 articles in the popular press, trade journals, and University Extension newsletters in 2015. Our website accrued over 53,000 pageviews from over 13,000 site users 2015. Fourteen blog posts were added to AgriClimate Connection, a joint effort with the USDA-funded Sustainable Corn project. The U2U Twitter account has exceeded 500 followers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We have received a one-year no-cost extension to finish activities within the U2U project. The two major activities scheduled for the no-cost extension period include completing project evaluation and transferring the U2U DSTs to the Regional Climate Centers (RCCs). Both of these activities were included in our initial work plan. The only significant change is that these tasks will be completed in the no-cost extension period. Work associated with the completion of project evaluation: We will be conducting several surveys with different populations to measure the extent of U2U tool use, measure the value of different outreach methodologies, assess project reach and impacts, and determine resulting behavioral changes and longer-term outcomes. Surveys will be conducted with stakeholders who previously attended a U2U outreach event, a sampling of agricultural advisors across the Corn Belt, and a random sample of Midwestern farmers. Specific tasks associated with these surveys include: Develop, test, and finalize survey questions Develop a sampling methodology and generate contact lists Complete IRB paperwork Design, print, mail/email, and process surveys Analyze and report summarized results and recommendations Publish results in scientific journals as appropriate Work associated with transferring the U2U DSTs to the RCCs: The five web-based decision support tools (DSTs) that currently reside on the U2U website will be transferred to both the Midwestern Regional Climate Center and the High Plains Regional Climate Center. Specific tasks associated with the transfer include: Develop a Memorandum of Understanding among the participating Universities to determine the roles and responsibilities during and after the DST transfer and long-term tool maintenance expectations. For each DST, provide code, scripts, libraries, and other needed packages to the RCCs so they can run and test tools within their systems. This will require a period of troubleshooting to adjust code and other data for use in a new environment. Test databases and user interfaces in the new environment, and develop procedures for annual data updates. Work with communications specialists to provide information to the U2U stakeholders about the DST transfer and long-term DST access. In addition to the above-described work, other activities that will be completed during the no-cost extension period include: Attend scientific conferences to share research results, completed products, and lessons learned from the U2U project. Complete research and extension publication submissions. Maintain the U2U website. Compile and submit the final U2U project report to USDA, and complete other administrative tasks as required.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The U2U team has developed five climate-based decision support tools, published 74 journal and other publications, connected with the agricultural community at over 145 stakeholder events, presented 162 talks at 90 scientific conferences, raised an additional $650,000 in funding by leveraging U2U outputs, and received national and local recognitions for excellence in mission integration. Information about the work of our diverse team of experts from nine universities across the Corn Belt have publicized in over 125 news articles in the popular press and trade publications, and our website has been view by more than 26,000 unique site users. Our team has used crop models to identify the impacts of weather and climate on past and future corn production, and we are investigating potential adaptive strategies for maximizing productivity and reducing risks from biophysical and economic perspectives (Objective 1). We have developed new knowledge about producers' and advisors' climate information needs and how their attitudes and beliefs might influence their willingness to adapt to climate change (Objective 2). Five web-based decision tools were developed based on user-identified information needs (Objective 3). Over 145 decision support tool outreach and training sessions have been conducted with key stakeholders in the Corn Belt, and project evaluation is ongoing (Objectives 4 and 5). Objective 1: Research activities have led to the development of a new crop model within the Integrated Science Assessment Model (ISAM) and significant improvement of the Purdue Crop/Livestock Program (PCLP) economic model (Song et al., 2013; Gramig et al., 2014). The Objective 1 crop modeling teams have evaluated the utility of simplistic crop models for agro-climatic studies (Liu et al., 2015; Niyogi et al., 2015). Team members used the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) model to derive a number of historical simulated crop and climate output series from both gridded and single site simulations to identify the physical impacts of weather and climate on corn production as well as spatial and temporal trends across the region. In addition to using crop model simulations to assess historical trends, U2U researchers also analyzed observed data to identify climate trends and subsequent agricultural impacts (Dai et al., 2015; Kellner and Niyogi, 2015). To assess potential crop yield impacts under future climate scenarios the DSSAT-based CERES-Maize crop model was run at the 18 single project sites for a variety of time slices, NARCCAP-derived Regional Climate Model (RCM) projections, and GCM-based climate projections. Additional Objective 1 research focuses on conducting farm-level economic case studies to evaluate the performance of management strategies under various climate scenarios, allowing profit-maximizing adaptations to be identified. Adaptation practices considered within the economic analysis include alternative tillage, timing of fertilizer application, adjusting planting/harvest dates, maize-based crop rotations, and irrigation investment. A significant amount of research activity has been undertaken to build an analytical framework and dataset capable of evaluating whether an expansion of areas where irrigation is profitable (may become commonplace) can be expected under climate changes predicted by mid-century (2041-2070). Objective 2: Our unprecedented surveys of Corn Belt farmers and agricultural advisor groups has improved scientific understanding about the climate information needs, climate change beliefs, trusted information sources, and risk management strategies of the agricultural community. Overviews of key findings were published in Arbuckle et al. (2013) and Prokopy et al. (2013). Also from the producer and advisor surveys we have extracted a great deal of information about differences in climate change beliefs across the agricultural sector and about improving our strategy for climate change communication (Arbuckle et al., 2014; Prokopy and Morton et al., 2015; Carlton et al., 2016). We clearly documented the role of agricultural advisors in guiding on-farm management decisions and their role as climate information brokers (Prokopy et al., 2013; Prokopy et al., 2014; Lemos et al., 2014; Haigh et al., 2015; Prokopy and Carlton et al., 2015; Davidson et al., 2015; Prokopy and Power, 2015). The following activities have been completed: 1) Producer Climate Needs Assessment (Feb/Mar 2012), conducted in partnership with the Sustainable Corn Project, to understand concerns about climate impacts, climate information needs, climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes, and trust in various information sources. 2) Advisor Climate Needs Assessment 1 (Feb/March 2012) to understand concerns about climate impacts, climate information needs, climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes, and trust in various information sources. 3) Advisor Climate Needs Assessment 2 (Feb/March 2013), follow-up survey. 4) Twelve focus groups were held with farmers, public advisors, and private advisors in Nebraska and Indiana from July 2012 - December 2013. 5) 20 corn farmers and 9 advisors were surveyed in 2013-14 in the Maple River watershed in Michigan to help us understand climate information diffusion within the agricultural community. Objective 3: Based on research results from Objectives 1 and 2, this working group has developed five web-based decision support tools. AgClimate ViewDST provides access to customized historical climate and crop yield data for the Corn Belt. Corn GDDDST allows you to track real-time and historical growing degree day (GDD) accumulations, assess spring and fall frost risk, and guide decisions related to planting, harvest, and seed selection. Climate Patterns ViewerDST helps you determine how global climate patterns can affect local climate conditions across the Corn Belt. Corn Split NDST can be used to determine the feasibility and profitability of using post-planting nitrogen application for corn production. Irrigation InvestmentDST lets you explore the profitability of installing irrigation equipment at user-selected locations across the Corn Belt. U2U team members have contributed substantial new knowledge to the scientific community on the current and potential uses of climate information in agricultural decision making, and guidance for improving climate forecasts for agricultural production (Mase and Prokopy, 2014; Takle et al., 2014; Haigh and Takle et al., 2015). Additionally, team members published a study that examined the impacts of teleconnections on historical weather patterns in the Midwestern United States (Kellner and Niyogi 2015). Objectives 4 and 5: U2U team members participated in 69 outreach events in 2015 (145 events since 2013) to train farmers and public/private agricultural advisors on using the various U2U decision support tools. Since 2013, outreach evaluation surveys were administered at 33 events to assess the likelihood of participants using the U2U tools within the next year. Overall, 83% of respondents (n=744) were at least somewhat likely to use U2U DSTs in the next year. Slightly more than half of our respondents said they have never used a DST to inform their work, but a large majority (94%) said they are willing to use climate-based DSTs to inform their work in the future (n=671). Numerous online usability tests with technical experts and people within the general agricultural community have been conducted. In 2015 the U2U team used a media campaign (three rounds) to spread awareness of U2U tools to members of the agricultural community.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Andresen, J., Niyogi, D., Alagarswamy, G., Delamater, P., Liu, X., Prokopy, L., Biehl, L., Widhalm, M., Takle, E., and C. Anderson. 2015. Assessing the Impact of Climatic Variability and Change on Maize Production in the Midwestern USA with Crop Simulation Models. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Doering, O., and B. Gramig. 2015. Useful Technology to Ameliorate Environmental Limits: Integrated Research for Climate Adaptation. CANUSSEE 2015. Vancouver, BC, Canada.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Doering, O., Hart, C., and R. Massey.. 2015. The Economic Content of U2U's Climate Responsive Decision Tools. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Do Yun, S., M. Delgado, R. Florax, and B. Gramig. 2015. Does Spatial Correlation Matter in Econometric Models of Crop Yield Response and Weather? 2015 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting and Western Agricultural Economics Association Joint Annual Meeting. San Francisco.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Dunn, M. 2015. Contextualizing Climate Change as a Perceived Risk in Agriculture. Association of American Geographers 2015 Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Gramig, B.M., E.M. Sajeev, Andresen, J., E. Takle, S. Patton, D. Niyogi, and L. Biehl. 2015. Farm-Scale Integrated Assessment to Identify Profit-Maximizing Adaptations to Climate Change in the Corn Belt. ASABE 1st Climate Change Symposium, Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Haigh, T. 2015. Adapting to Climate Change and Variability. American Dairy Association Discover Conference, Itasca, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Haigh, T., M. Hayes, K. Shoengold, B. Lubben, T. Tadesse. 2015. The Relative Importance of Climate in Agricultural Decisions about Risk Management and Adaptation. Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop. Las Cruces, NM.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Haigh, T., E. Takle, J. Andreson, M. Widhalm, J.S. Carlton, and J. Angel. 2015. Mapping Agricultural Decision Making across the U.S. Corn Belt. 2015 Climate Predication Applications Science Workshop, Las Cruces, NM.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Haigh, T., E. Takle, J. Andresen, M. Widhalm, J.S. Carlton, and J. Angel. 2015. Mapping the Decision Calendar across the U.S. Corn Belt. Association of American Geographers 2015 Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Klink, J. 2015. Climate data helping farmers? Evaluating usability and adoption of Decision Support Tools. Association of American Geographers 2015 Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Klink, J., Koumdinya, V., Hart, C., and A. Schmechel. 2015. Promoting and Evaluating Decision Support Tools. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Klink, J., Todey, D., Koundinya, V., Hart, C., and L. Prokopy. 2015. Ag/Climate Decision Support Tools for Farmers and Ag Advisors: The Products, Outreach, and Evaluation. 70th Annual Soil and Water Conservation Society Meeting, Greensboro, NC.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Liu, X., F. Chen, M. Barlage, G. Zhou, and D. Niyogi. 2015. Noah-MP-CROP: Enhancing cropland representation in the community land surface modeling system. 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Liu, X., Jacobs, E., Biehl, L., Kumar, A., and D. Niyogi. 2015. A Land Information System (LIS) Based Dataset for Regional Agro-Hydro-Climatic Assessments over the U.S. Corn Belt.. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Massey, R. 2015. U2U: Split Nitrogen Feasibility and Economic Tool. 2015 National Adaptation Forum  Tools Caf�, St. Louis, MO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Niyogi, D., Liu, X., Takle, E., Anderson, C., Andresen, J., Alagarswamy, G., Gramig, B., and O. Doering. 2015. Impacts of climate change on corn yield and the length of corn growing season in U.S. Corn Belt. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2015. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S.. 2015a. The role of social science in climate risk management. Association of American Geographers 2015 Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2015b. Usable climate information for agriculture. ASABE 1st Climate Change Symposium, Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2015c. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming climate information into usable tools to support Midwestern agricultural production. 70th Annual Soil and Water Conservation Society Meeting, Charleston, SC.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2015e. Useful to Usable: Lessons Learned about Selling Climate Smart Agriculture. Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) Public Meeting, West Lafayette, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2015f. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming climate variability and change information for cereal crop producers. Implications of a changing arctic on water resources and agriculture in the central U.S., Lincoln, NE.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2015g. Useful to Usable (U2U) Case Study. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2015h. The Role of Social Science in Climate Risk Management. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. and S.P. Church. 2015. Media and agricultural trade publication representation of drought. 21st International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Charleston, SC.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Schmitz, H. 2015. Useful to Usable: Split Nitrogen Decision Support Tool. 100th Annual Meeting and Professional Improvement Conference National Association of County Agricultural Agents. Sioux Falls, SD.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Schmitz, H., Todey, D., and M. Widhalm. 2015. The Agronomic Content of U2U's Climate Responsive Decision Tools. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Todey, D., Andresen, J., Angel, J., Gramig, B., Guinan, P., Hart, C., Widhalm, M., Kellner, O., Biehl, L., and D. Niyogi 2015. Climate Information for Agronomic Decision Tools.. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Van Dop, M. 2015. Is irrigation profitable in the Central and Eastern Cornbelt? A new extension program, outreach materials, and workable examples for use in learning/training prospective tool users. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Widhalm, M. 2015. Climate-based decision support tools for agricultural production. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Widhalm, M. 2015. U2U Decision Support Tools. Midwest Climate and Agriculture Workshop. Champaign, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Widhalm, M. 2015. U2U: Transforming climate information into usable tools to support Midwestern agricultural production. ACI Emerging Professionals Leadership Program. West Lafayette, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Widhalm, M., Klink, J., Kies, K., Koundinya, V., McKinney, E., Kluetmeier, E., and C. Hart. 2015. Evaluating usability and adoption of agro-climate decision support tools. 95th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Phoenix, AZ.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Wilke, A. 2015. Communicating Climate Science for Agricultural Decision Support. 2015 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Church, S., Haigh, T., Widhalm, M., Prokopy, L., Arbuckle, J., Hobbs, J., Knoot, T., Knutson, C., Loy, A., Mase, A., Mcguire, J., Morton, L., Tyndall, J. (2015). Farmer Perspectives on Agricultural Practices, Information, and Weather Variability in the Corn Belt: A Statistical Atlas, Volume 2. Purdue University Research Repository. doi:10.4231/R79W0CFS
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Arbuckle, J., L.W. Morton, and J. Hobbs. 2015. Understanding Farmer Perspectives on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation: The Roles of Trust in Sources of Climate Information, Climate Change Beliefs, and Perceived Risk. Environment and Behavior 47(2): 205-234.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Dai, S., M. Shulski, K. Hubbard, and G. Takle. 2015. A spatiotemporal analysis of Midwest U.S. temperature and precipitation trends during the growing season from 1980 to 2013. International Journal of Climatology. DOI: 10.1002/joc.4354
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Davidson, E.A., E.C. Suddick, C.W. Rice, and L.S. Prokopy. 2015. More Food, Low Pollution (Mo Fo Lo Po): A Grand Challenge for the 21st Century. Journal of Environmental Quality. 44(2): 305-311
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Haigh, T., L.W. Morton, M.C. Lemos, C. Knutson, L.S. Prokopy, Y.J. Lo, and J. Angel. 2015. Agricultural Advisors as Climate Information Intermediaries: Exploring Differences in Capacity to Communicate Climate. Weather, Climate, and Society. 7(1): 83-93.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Haigh, T., E. Takle, J. Andresen, M. Widhalm, J.S. Carlton, and J. Angel. 2015. Mapping the Decision Points and Climate Information use of Agricultural Producers across the U.S. Corn Belt. Climate Risk Management. 7: 20-30.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Kellner, O., and D. Niyogi. 2015. Climate Variability and the U.S. Corn Belt: ENSO and AO Episode-dependent Hydroclimatic Feedbacks to Corn Production at Regional and Local Scales. Earth Interactions. 19: 1-32.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Liu, X., J. Andresen, H. Yang, and D. Niyogi. 2015. Calibration and Validation of the Hybrid-Maize Crop Model for Regional Analysis and Application over the U.S. Corn Belt. Earth Interactions 19(9): 1-16.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Mase, A.S., Cho, H., and L.S. Prokopy. 2015. Enhancing the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) by exploring trust, the availability heuristic, and agricultural advisors' belief in climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 41: 166-176.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: McGuire, J., L.W. Morton, A. Cast and J.G. Arbuckle. 2015. Farmer identities and responses to the social-biophysical environment. Journal of Rural Studies. 39: 145-155.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Morton, L.W., J. Hobbs, J. Arbuckle, and A. Loy. 2015. Upper Midwest Climate Variations: Farmer Responses to Excess Water Risks. Journal Environmental Quality. doi:10.2134/jeq2014.08.0352
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Niyogi, D, X. Liu, J. Andresen, Y. Song, A.K. Jain, O, Kellner, E. Takle, and O. Doering. 2015. Crop Models Can Capture the Impacts of Climate Variability on Corn Yield. Geophysical Research Letters. 42(9): 3356-3363. DOI: 10.1002/2015GL063841.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., J.G. Arbuckle, A.P. Barnes, V.R. Haden, A. Hogan, M.T. Niles, and J. Tyndall. 2015. Farmers and Climate Change: A Cross-National Comparison of Beliefs and Risk Perceptions in High-Income Countries. Environmental Management. 26(2): 492-504.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., J.S. Carlton, J.G. Arbuckle, T. Haigh, M.C. Lemos, A.S. Mase, N. Babin, M. Dunn, J. Andresen, J. Angel, C. Hart, and R. Power. 2015. Extension's Role in Disseminating Information about Climate Change to Agricultural Stakeholders in the United States. Climatic Change, 130(2): 261-272. DOI 10.1007/s10584-015-1339-9.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., C.E. Hart, R. Massey, M. Widhalm, J. Andresen, J. Angel, T. Blewett, O.C. Doering, R. Elmore, B.M. Gramig, P. Guinan, B.L. Hall, A. Jain, C.L. Knutson, M.C. Lemos, L.W. Morton, D. Niyogi, R. Power, M.D. Shulski, C. X. Song, E.S. Takle, and D. Todey. 2015. Using a team survey to improve team communication for enhanced delivery of agro-climate decision support tools. Agricultural Systems. 138: 31-37. DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2015.05.002
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. and R. Power. 2015. Envisioning New Roles for Land-Grant University Extension: Lessons Learned from Climate Change Outreach in the Midwest. Journal of Extension, 53(6): Commentary #6COM1.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Tyndall, J., J.G. Arbuckle, T. Haigh, C. Knutson, L.W. Morton, L.S. Prokopy, and M. Widhalm. 2015. New Atlas Features Corn Belt Farmers' Perspectives on Agriculture and Climate. Journal of Extension, 53(1): Tools of the Trade #1TOT9.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Wilke, A.K. and L.W. Morton. 2015a. Climatologists patterns of communicating science to agriculture. Agriculture & Human Values 32: 99-110.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., L.W. Morton, J.G. Arbuckle, A.S. Mase, and A.W. Wilke. 2015. Agricultural stakeholder views on climate change: Implications for conducting research and outreach. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 96(2): 181-190.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Wilke, A.K, and L.W. Morton. 2015b. Climatologists Communication of Climate Science to the Agricultural Sector. Communication Science 37(3): 371-395.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015a. 2015 Project Update.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015b. U2U Overview & DST Poster.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015c. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Mar 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015d. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. July 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015e. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Nov 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015f. U2U Corn Split N User Guide. Oct 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015g. U2U Corn GDD User Guide. July 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015h. U2U Climate Patterns Viewer User Guide. March 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015i. U2U Corn Split N User Guide. Oct 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2015j. U2U Corn GDD User Guide. July 2015.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Carlton, S., Haigh, T., Knutson, C., Lemos, M., Mase, A., McGuire, J., Morton, L., Prokopy, L., Widhalm, M. (2015). Agricultural Advisors Climate Risk Perceptions: 2013 Survey Data. Purdue University Research Repository. DOI: 10.4231/R7707ZDF). Embargo until Nov 29, 2016
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Dunn, M., Babin, N., Church, S., Haigh, T., Knutson, C., Lemos, M., Mase, A., McGuire, J., Morton, L., Prokopy, L., Widhalm, M. (2015). Agricultural Advisors Climate Risk Perceptions: 2013-14 Interview Data. Purdue University Research Repository. (DOI: 10.4231/R73776P3). Embargo until Nov 29, 2017
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Jacobs, E.M. 2015. Spatiotemporal patterns of hydroclimatic drivers and soil water storage: observations and modeling across scale. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Purdue University.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Kellner, O. B. 2015. A Hydroclimatic Assessment of the U.S. Corn Belt across Spatial and Temporal Scales. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Purdue University.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Yun, S.D.. 2015. Economic dynamics of movement: Environmental changes and spatial spillover. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Purdue University.


Progress 04/14/14 to 04/13/15

Outputs
Target Audience: During this reporting period our efforts reached the following target audiences: Midwestern corn farmers, public and private sector agricultural advisors (including Extension educators), climate and social science researchers In 2014 Estimated outreach attendance: 4,600 Website page views: 48,799 Unique website users: 11,312 E-Newsletter listserv: 600 members Changes/Problems: Change to co-PD: University of Wisconsin co-PD Tom Blewett retired and is no longer on the U2U project. Rebecca Power from the University of Wisconsin has taken over as co-PD in his place. Our approach for completing tasks 1 (Regional expansion workshop) and task 2 (Evaluation of workshop) within Objective 5 will be modified to better meet the needs of our audience and to ensure more effective evaluation. The overall Objective - broadly disseminate validated tools - remains unchanged. We have determined that a regional expansion workshop (and subsequent evaluation of this workshop) will not be an effective way to reach key stakeholders. Rather, U2U team members and Extension partners throughout the region have been recruited to conduct tool training sessions on-site at popular, existing farmer and advisor events. We will follow a similar outreach and evaluation strategy as used in Objective 4, which has been incredibly successful at reaching our target audience. During Year 5 we will conduct an increased number of training events and ensure that all states in the Corn Belt are included. In response to user feedback collected during Years 3-4, in addition to tool training presentations we will also host additional hands-on training sessions at 8-10 events in Year 5. Participants will be able to use the tools in real-time at walk-up computer stations and receive immediate training and troubleshooting assistance. The use of more hand-on training sessions was a key finding from past outreach evaluation surveys. Post-event evaluation surveys will be incorporated into outreach events to measure participant's likelihood to use the tools and/or recommend the tools to others. Finally an end-of-project random sample survey of farmers and advisors will be conducted in conjunction with Objective 4 to gauge the reach of our tools and marketing efforts and evaluate overall project impact. Researchers on the Objective 1 Working Group are behind schedule with portions of task 2 (Crop modeling). This has resulted in a subsequent delay in task 3 (Farm case studies) since it requires crop model outputs under future climate conditions. Three crop models are being used to simulate crop characteristics for historical and future climate scenarios at a variety of spatial resolutions. The historical crop simulations have been completed, but crop modeling using future climate scenarios is still underway. This task is delayed due to complexities associated with bias-correcting and formatting future climate projections as needed to fit the specific U2U project requirements. We expect the future simulations to be finished by the end of Year 4, which will allow the farm economic case studies to be completed in Year 5. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? U2U team members participated in at least 43 outreach events in 2014 to train farmers and public/private agricultural advisors on using U2U decision support tools. Several of these events provided participants with continuing education/certification credits. The team developed the U2U Educational Resources webpage (agclimate4u.org/kit) to help educators learn about U2U decision tools and provide them with quick access to informational materials (user guides, factsheets, PowerPoints, etc.) that will help them disseminate U2U tools to their clients. Over 100 educators have signed up to receive these materials. The U2U Corn Split N tool has been approved as a training resource for the Indiana Pesticide Application Recertification Program (PARP) (https://ag.purdue.edu/extension/ppp/Pages/educator.aspx). Every farm spraying restricted use pesticides or applying specific quantities of manure in Indiana are required to receive two hours of PARP educational training in addition to meeting regulatory requirements. Farmers can now use the Corn Split N tool training materials to fulfill these educational requirements. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? During this reporting period we disseminated U2U decision support tools and other project research to our target audiences using a variety of outlets including outreach events, scientific conferences, journal articles and Extension publications, our website, our blog, Twitter, and our quarterly newsletter. During 2014 U2U team members conducted outreach at 43 events and they presented research findings at 25 scientific meetings/conferences. Six book chapters and journal articles were published in 2014, and another nine journal articles currently in press. Five project fact sheets and three editions of the U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter were disseminated, and the newsletter list now exceeds 600 subscribers. U2U research and DSTs were featured in over 45 articles in the popular press, trade journals, and University Extension newsletters in 2014 alone. Our website accrued over 48,000 pageviews from over 11,000 site users 2014. Twenty-six blog posts were added to AgriClimate Connection, a joint effort with the USDA-funded Sustainable Corn project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1 Accomplishments: This working group has made significant progress towards developing a modeling framework to understand the production, environmental and financial outcomes of various climate scenarios and farm management strategies on Midwestern corn production systems. Three crop modeling systems are being used to simulate the impact of past and future climate on crop production in the Corn Belt. Crop models were calibrated and validated using high quality historical climate, agronomic, and soils datasets at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Considerable effort was focused on acquiring these data and on model validation activities to ensure high confidence in the site-level and gridded crop model outputs. They have conducted studies examining the ability of three crop models of varying complexity to represent changes in climate and agronomic practices, and simulate the impacts of climate variability and change on agricultural production. They have also tested several approaches for migrating site-level models to operating on a continuous grid, and addressed numerous data gap issues that arose when scaling up modeling to a regional scale. Additionally, An economic modeling framework based on the Purdue Crop/Livestock Linear Program (PC-LP) has been developed. This framework demonstrates how climate and crop simulations will be integrated with farm-level economic modeling to evaluate adaptation strategies under future climate scenarios. Objective 2 Accomplishments: Our unprecedented surveys of Corn Belt farmers and agricultural advisor groups has improved scientific understanding about the climate information needs, climate change beliefs, trusted information sources, and risk management strategies of the agricultural community. We have clearly documented the role of agricultural advisors in guiding on-farm management decisions and their role as climate information brokers. Team members have also contributed substantial new knowledge to the scientific community on the current and potential uses of climate information in agricultural decision making, and guidance for improving climate forecasts for agricultural production. The U2U Social Science Working Group has successfully completed the following activities with numerous publications and new knowledge resulting from this work. 1) Producer Climate Needs Assessment (Feb/Mar 2012), conducted in partnership with the Sustainable Corn Project. We collected responses from 4,778 corn farmers in 22 HUC6 watersheds in 11 Corn Belt states to understand their concerns about climate impacts, climate information needs, climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes, and trust in various information sources. 2) Advisor Climate Needs Assessment 1 (Feb/March 2012). We collected responses from about 2,100 public and private farm advisors in four Corn Belt states to understand their concerns about climate impacts, climate information needs, climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes, and trust in various information sources. 3) Advisor Climate Needs Assessment 2 (Feb/March 2013). This was a follow up survey to see if/how advisors concerns, beliefs, and attitudes were affected by the severe 2012 Midwestern drought. We had over 860 advisors complete both surveys in 2012 and 2013, resulting in a unique longitudinal dataset. 4) Twelve focus groups were held with farmers, public advisors, and private advisors in Nebraska and Indiana from July 2012 - December 2013. During these meetings participants provided feedback about current and future U2U decision support tools. This information has directly influenced U2U tool and website development. 5) Twenty corn farmers and nine advisors were surveyed in 2013-14 in the Maple River watershed in Michigan to help us understand climate information diffusion within the agricultural community. Twelve in-depth follow-up interviews were conducted in 2014 with selected respondents to understand how advisors adjust delivery of climate information to clients with differing levels of concerns about climate change. Objective 3 Accomplishments: Based on research results from Objectives 1 and 2, this working group has developed four web-based decision support tools to help farmers and agricultural advisors examine production, financial, and environmental outcomes of different climate scenarios and management options. AgClimate ViewDST provides convenient access to customized historical climate and crop yield data for the Corn Belt. View and download graphs of monthly temperatures and precipitation, plot corn and soybean yield trends, and compare climate and yields over the past 30 years. Corn GDDDST allows you to track real-time and historical growing degree day (GDD) accumulations, assess spring and fall frost risk, and guide decisions related to planting, harvest, and seed selection. This innovative tool integrates corn development stages with weather and climate data for location-specific decision support tailored specifically to agricultural production. Climate Patterns ViewerDST helps you determine how global climate patterns like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO) have historically affected local climate conditions across the Corn Belt. Corn Split NDST can be used to determine the feasibility and profitability of using post-planting nitrogen application for corn production. The tool combines historical data on crop growth and fieldwork conditions with economic considerations to determine best/worst/most likely scenarios of successfully completing nitrogen applications within a user-specified time period. These four tools are available at www.AgClimate4U.org. Two additional web-based tools are under development and expected for release in 2015-2016. In addition to decision tools, this working group has also developed a public website (AgClimate4U.org), launched a blog in partnership with the USDA-funded Sustainable Corn project, and they developed a quarterly e-newsletter that has over 600 subscribers to date. Objective 4 Accomplishments: U2U team members participated in at least 43 outreach events in 2014 to train farmers and public/private agricultural advisors on using the various U2U decision support tools. Outreach evaluation surveys were administered at 12 of these events to assess the likelihood of participants using the U2U tools within the next year. Overall, about 77% of respondents (n=324) were at least somewhat likely to use U2U DSTs in the next year. Slightly more than half of our respondents said they have never used a DST to inform their work, but a large majority (95%) said they are willing to use climate-based DSTs to inform their work in the future (n=200). Of the attendees who were asked whether they would spread the word about U2U DSTs, the majority (86%) said that they would (n=69). To ensure proper functionality and usability of our DSTs, numerous online usability tests with technical experts and people within the general agricultural community were conducted. A total of 65 people participated in these structured tests, providing important feedback that was immediately incorporated into our tools. Objective 5 Accomplishments: Nothing to report for this period.

Publications

  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Takle, E. S. 2014. Agricultural Meteorology and Climatology. In Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Science 2nd Edition. Elsevier Ltd, Oxford, UK.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Andresen, J., J. Angel, P. Guinan, D. Niyogi, and D. Todey. 2014. U2U Project Update & Tools. 39th Annual Meeting of the American Association of State Climatologists. Stevenson, WA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Andresen, J., Jain, A., Niyogi, D., Alagarswamy, G., Delamater, P., and X. Liu. 2014. Assessing the Impact of Climatic Variability and Change on Maize Production in the Midwestern USA. Association of American Geographers 2014 Annual Meeting. Tampa, Florida.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Angel, J.. 2014. Stan Changnon's 20/20 Vision of Climate Services in the U.S. 94th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Atlanta, GA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Angel, J., Todey, D.P., Massey, R., Widhalm, M., Biehl, L.L., Andresen, J., Niyogi, D., Song, C., and B. Raub. 2014. The U2U Decision Support Tool for Corn Growing Degree Days. 21st Conference on Applied Climatology. Denver, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Angel, J., Todey, D.P., Massey, R., Widhalm, M., Biehl, L.L., Andresen. 2014. Dealing with Climate Change and Variability in the Growing Season: A U2U Decision Support Tool for Central United States Corn Producers Based on Corn Growing Degree Days. 2014 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Biehl, L., C. Song, L. Zhao, C. Panza, and B. Raub. 2014. Developing a collaborative environment for Useful to Usable Project. Hubbub 2014 Conference, West Lafayette, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Dai, S., and M.D. Shulski. 2014. Growing Season Climate Change in the Midwest U.S. from 1981 to 2012. 40th Annual Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium. Lincoln, NE
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Dai, S., and M.D. Shulski. 2014. Midwestern Climate Trend Viewer: A web-based tool for the agricultural community. NOAA Climate Diagnostics and Predictions Workshop. St. Louis, MO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gramig, B.M., E.M. Sajeev, P. Preckel, and O. Doering. 2014. Profit Maximizing Adaptations to Projected Climate Change in the US Corn Belt. 2014 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting. Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Haigh, T. and J.S. Carlton. 2014. The Effect of the 2012 Drought on Agricultural Risk Perceptions. 40th Annual Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium. Lincoln, NE.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Kellner, O., and D. Niyogi. 2014. Climatological Analysis of ENSO and AO Impacts on Temperature and Precipitation across the U.S. Corn Belt 1980-2010. 21st Conference on Applied Climatology. Denver, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Klink, J., M. Widhalm, and E. McKinney. 2014. Climate data helping farmers? Evaluating usability and adoption of Decision Support Tools. 28th Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association. Denver, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Takle, E.S..2014. Metrics and indicators linking climate extremes to food security and ecosystem health and diversity. International Symposium on Weather and Climate Extremes, Food Security and Biodiversity, Fairfax, VA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Widhalm, M. 2014. How Climate Data Helps the Agricultural Community Make Better Decisions. 2014 Indiana Agriculture and Water Monitoring Symposium. Indianapolis, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Widhalm, M., Andresen, J., Angel, J., Kellner, O., Massey, R., and D.P. Todey. 2014. Transforming climate information into usable tools to support Midwestern agricultural production. 94th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Atlanta, GA.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Hart, C. 2014a. "Great Crop Conditions, Worsening Crop Prices." Iowa Farm Outlook. August 2014. p. 2-6.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Hart, C. 2014b. "Plenty of Acreage and Plenty of Rain." Iowa Farm Outlook. July 2014. p. 5-8.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Hart, C. 2014c. "Planting Progress Up, Prices Down." Iowa Farm Outlook. June 2014. p. 7-9.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Hart, C. 2014d. "A Lot of Rain and A Little Planting." Iowa Farm Outlook. May 2014. p. 4-7.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Hart, C. 2014e. "Springing into the 2014 Crop." Iowa Farm Outlook. April 2014. p. 5-9.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Hart, C.. 2014f. "When Spring Finally Gets Here." Iowa Farm Outlook. March 2014. p. 3-5.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Liu, X., F. Chen, M. Barlage, D. Niyogi. 2014. Noah-MP-CROP: an integrated atmosphere-crop-soil modeling system for regional agro-climatic assessments. 2014 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Lui, X., L.L. Biehl, E.M. Karlsson, A. Kumar, and D. Niyogi. 2014. A Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) based Dataset For Regional Agro-climatic Assessments over the U.S. Corn Belt. 21st Conference on Applied Climatology. Denver, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Mase, A. and L.S. Prokopy. 2014. Climate Change Risk and Adaptation: Perspectives of Midwestern Agriculturalists. 94th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Atlanta, GA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: McGuire, J. M. and L.W. Morton. 2014. Farmer Identity in the U.S. Cornbelt. 77th Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, New Orleans, LA
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2014. Agricultural stakeholders and their attitudes towards climate change. 2014 Extension, Energy, and Environment Summit. Ames, IA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., and M. Widhalm. 2014. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming climate information into usable tools to support Midwestern agricultural production. 2014 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Pathak, T. 2014. Growing Degree Day (GDD) Accumulations Across Nebraska Corresponding to Low, Medium, and High Freeze Risk. UNL Crop Watch. April 4, 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Pathak, T., R. Elmore, and K. Hubbard. 2014. Climatological Benefits of Early Soybean Planting. UNL Crop Watch. April 18, 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Pathak, T., and M. Shulski. 2014. Introducing Ag Climate View Tool for the US Corn Belt. UNL Crop Watch. May 2, 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., Towery, D., and N. Babin. 2014. Adoption of Agricultural Conservation Practices: Insights from Research and Practice. FNR-488-W. Purdue University.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Todey, D. 2014. Tracking Crop Progress Using Climate Data. iGrow. July 10, 2014.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Kellner, O., and D. Niyogi. In Press. Climate Variability and the U.S. Corn Belt: ENSO and AO Episode-dependent Hydroclimatic Feedbacks to Corn Production at Regional and Local Scales. Earth Interactions.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Arbuckle, J.G., J. Hobbs, A. Loy, L.W. Morton, L.S. Prokopy, and J. Tyndall. 2014. Understanding farmer perspectives on climate change: Toward effective communication strategies for adaptation and mitigation in the Corn Belt. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 69(6): 505-516
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Arbuckle, J., L.W. Morton, and J. Hobbs. In Press. Trust, beliefs, and perceived risk as determinants of farmer support for adaptive and mitigative responses to climate change. Environment and Behavior.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Carlton, J.S., Angel, J.R., Fei, S., Huber, M., Koontz, T., MacGowan, B.J., Mullendore, N.D., Babin, N., and L.S. Prokopy. 2014. State service foresters attitudes toward using climate and weather information when advising forest landowners. Journal of Forestry 112(1): 9-14.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Carlton, J.S., Mase, A.S., Knutson, C.L., Lemos, M.C., Haigh, T., Todey, D.P., and L.S. Prokopy. In Review. The effects of extreme drought on climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and adaptation attitudes. Climatic Change
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Davidson, E.A., E.C. Suddick, C.W. Rice, and L.S. Prokopy. In Press. More Food, Low Pollution (Mo Fo Lo Po): A Grand Challenge for the 21st Century. Journal of Environmental Quality.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Haigh, T., L.W. Morton, M.C. Lemos, C. Knutson, L.S. Prokopy, Y.J. Lo, and J. Angel. In Press. Agricultural Advisors as Climate Information Intermediaries: Exploring Differences in Capacity to Communicate Climate. Weather, Climate, and Society.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Haigh, T., E. Takle, J. Andresen, M. Widhalm, J.S. Carlton, and J. Angel. In Press. Mapping the Decision Points and Climate Information use of Agricultural Producers across the U.S. Corn Belt. Climate Risk Management
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Lemos, M.C., Y.J. Lo, C.J. Kirchhoff, and T. Haigh. 2014. Crop advisors as climate information brokers: building the capacity of US farmers to adapt to climate change. Climate Risk Management
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Liu, X., J. Andresen, H. Yang, and D. Niyogi. In Review. Sensitivity analysis and validation the Hybrid-Maize simulation model across the Midwest. Earth Interactions.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Mase, A.S., and L.S. Prokopy. 2014. Unrealized potential: A review of perceptions and use of weather and climate information in agricultural decision making. Weather, Climate and Society 6 (1): 47-61.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Mase, A.S., Cho, H., and L.S. Prokopy. In Press. Agricultural advisors perceptions of climate change risk influence adaptation attitudes. Journal of Environmental Psychology.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: McGuire, J., L.W. Morton, A. Cast and J.G. Arbuckle. In Review. Farmer identities and responses to the social-biophysical environment. Journal of Rural Studies.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Morton, L.W., J. Hobbs, J. Arbuckle, and A. Loy. In Press. Upper Midwest Climate Variations: Farmer Responses to Excess Water Risks. Journal Environmental Quality.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Niyogi, D, X. Liu, J. Andresen, Y. Song, A.K. Jain, O, Kellner, E. Takle, and O. Doering. In Review. Crop Models Can Capture the Impacts of Climate Variability on Corn Yield. Geophysical Research Letter.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., J.G. Arbuckle, A.P. Barnes, V.R. Haden, A. Hogan, M.T. Niles, and J. Tyndall. In Review. Farmers and Climate Change: A Cross-National Comparison of Beliefs and Risk Perceptions in High-Income Countries. Environmental Management.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., J.S. Carlton, J.G. Arbuckle, T. Haigh, M.C. Lemos, A.S. Mase, N. Babin, M. Dunn, J. Andresen, J. Angel, C. Hart, and R. Power. In Press. Extension's Role in Disseminating Information about Climate Change to Agricultural Stakeholders in the United States. Climatic Change
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., L.W. Morton, J.G. Arbuckle, A.S. Mase, and A.W. Wilke. In Press. Agricultural stakeholder views on climate change: Implications for conducting research and outreach. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., C.E. Hart, R. Massey, M. Widhalm, J. Andresen, J. Angel, T. Blewett, O.C. Doering, R. Elmore, B.M. Gramig, P. Guinan, B.L. Hall, A. Jain, C.L. Knutson, M.C. Lemos, L.W. Morton, D. Niyogi, R. Power, M.D. Shulski, C. X. Song, E.S. Takle, and D. Todey. In Review. Improving team communication for enhanced delivery of agro-climate decision support tools. Agricultural Systems
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Takle, E.S., C.J. Anderson, J. Andresen, J. Angel, R. Elmore, B.M. Gramig, P. Guinan, S. Hilberg, D. Kluck, R. Massey, D. Niyogi, J. Schneider, M. Shulski, D. Todey, and M. Widhalm. 2014. Climate Forecasts for Corn Producer Decision-Making. Earth Interactions, 18(5): 1-8.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Wilke, A.K. and L.W. Morton. In Press. Climatologists patterns of communicating science to agriculture. Agriculture & Human Values 32: 99-110.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Wilke, A.K, and L.W. Morton. In Review. Communicating climate science: Components for engaging the agricultural audiences. Communication Science.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Freeland, P. 2014. Climate change in Native American communities: Challenges of comprehension, context, & communication. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Purdue University.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gardezi, M. 2014. Who Will Represent Societal Interests as the U.S. Government Steps Back from Agricultural Advise? Evidence from Michigan's Public and Private Sectors. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, University of Michigan.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Mase, A. 2014. Climate change risks, information and adaptation: Perspectives of Midwestern U.S. farmers and advisors. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Purdue University.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Sajeev E.M. 2014. Agriculture in a Changing Climate: Does adaptation matter? Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Agricultural Economics, Purdue University.
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: http://www.AgClimate4U.org
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. Project Fact Sheet.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. DST Factsheet.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. Social Science Research Results.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U Overview Poster.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U DST Overview Poster.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Mar 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Aug 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Nov 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U AgClimate View User Guide. Aug 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U Corn GDD User Guide. Aug 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U Climate Patterns Viewer User Guide. Aug 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). 2014. U2U Corn Split N User Guide. Nov 2014.


Progress 04/14/13 to 04/13/14

Outputs
Target Audience: During this reporting period our efforts reached the following target audiences: Midwestern corn farmers, public and private sector agricultural advisors (including Extension educators), climate and social science researchers Estimated meeting and conference attendance: 2000 Website page views: 9,003 Unique website visitors: 2,203 E-Newsletter listserv: 300 members Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? U2U team members participated in eight outreach events to train farmers and public/private agricultural advisors on using U2U decision support tools. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? During this reporting period we disseminated U2U decision support tools and research on our website and at31 agricultural and scientific meetings. We held 11 focus groups with farmers and agricultural advisors. Twenty-one book chapters, journal articles, and Extension articles were published along with several project fact sheets and four editions of the U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. In collaboration with the USDA-funded CSCAP project (SustainableCorn.org) we launched AgriClimate Connection, an interactive blog where farmers and scientists across the Corn Belt can learn about and discuss cutting-edge farm management strategies, weather and climate conditions and more. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The primary goals of the U2U project during the next reporting period are to develop and expand decision support tools, disseminate resources to farmers and advisors across the Corn Belt, and evaluate the usability of U2U products and materials. The Objective 1 Working Group will focus on modeling the potential impacts of future climate scenarios on crop yields in the Corn Belt, and complete economic assessments and case studies. Simulated historical and future crop yields and results from economic analyses will then be integrated into U2U decision support tools. The Objective 2 Working Group will continue synthesizing and publishing results from work performed in 2012 and 2013 including, 1) the producer and advisor climate needs assessment surveys, 2) focus groups, and 3) the network analysis. The Objective 3 Working Group will implement new features into existing U2U decision tools, including AgClimate View (ACV) and the Growing Degree Days (GDD) Tool. A prototype tool to support nitrogen management decisions will be developed. We will test the feasibility of developing other tools related to corn dry down, irrigation and tiling investments, and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The Objective 4 Working Group will develop a protocol and monitoring plan for quality, consistent tool outreach and dissemination in our four pilot states. U2U products will continued to be disseminated at farmer/advisor events in the region. Training materials will be developed and deployed, and pre/post participant outcome evaluations will be conducted. The Objective 5 Working Group does not have any work scheduled for the next reporting period. Team conference calls and in-person meetings will continue on a regular basis throughout this period. We will continue to publish the U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter and post regular updates to our blog (AgriClimate Connection) and our website (AgClimate4U.org). Research findings will be disseminated via journal publications, professional conferences, outreach events, and in U2U resources.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Impact Statement: Weather and climate patterns are a driving force behind the success or failure of cropping systems. With U.S. corn and soybean production accounting for 37% of global supplies and contributing over $50 billion annually to the national economy, the ability to successfully produce crops under more variable climate conditions is critical for food security and rural livelihoods. Farmers can benefit from incorporating climate information into their farm management planning, but the actual use of such information remains limited. The U2U project strives to enhance the usability and up-take of climate information for farmers and their advisors, and bolster Extension’s capacity to address agro-climate issues across the Corn Belt. Long-term, these efforts will lead to more profitable agricultural systems across the Corn Belt and greater resilience to a changing climate. Objective1 Accomplishments: This working group completed historical site-specific and gridded crop yield simulations for the Corn Belt using three modeling systems of varying complexity (Hybrid Maize, DSSAT, and ISAM). Results were analyzed to identify physical impacts of weather and climate on corn production as well as spatial and temporal trends across the region including simulated yields, hydrologic variables associated with corn production, corn production under non-limiting conditions (water and nitrogen), antecedent soil moisture and subsequent corn yields, irrigation, and soil trafficability. The amount and frequency of growing season precipitation were climatological variables most closely associated with regional corn yields. Antecedent (pre-season) soil moisture was found to be positively correlated with yield, especially in western sections of the project domain. Mean soil moisture levels during the year vary considerably across the region, with greatest overall totals and seasonal amplitude in eastern sections. Mean seasonal irrigation totals varied from less than 25mm/year across eastern and some central sections of the domain to more than 300mm/year in far western sections. Generally, increases in annual precipitation during the past 50 years have reduced the frequency and severity of water stress during the growing season, resulting in relatively higher crop yields (beyond the effects of improved technology) across the Corn Belt. In addition to crop modeling research, this group also developed a gridded soil moisture and temperature hydroclimatology for the Corn Belt, analyzed the impact of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on Midwestern climate, and investigated changes in the number of days available to complete on-farm field work from 1981-2010. Objective 2 Accomplishments: This working group surveyed over 8,500 public and private agricultural advisors across the U.S. Corn Belt to understand how the 2012 drought changed advisors' perceptions of climate risks, beliefs about the existence and/or causes of climate change, and willingness to respond to climate change. They held 10 focus groups with farmers and advisors in Indiana and Nebraska. Also, a network analysis study mapping farmer and advisor interactions in the Maple River watershed (Michigan) was initiated. Results from two unprecedented surveys of farmers and advisors conducted in 2012 were published in several manuscripts in 2013. One key discovery from the surveys was that significant relationships exist between farmers’ and advisors’ climate change beliefs and how climate risks are perceived, their willingness to use climate information, their beliefs about risk management practices and responsibilities, and who they trust for farm management and climate change information. Objective 3 Accomplishments: Based on research results from Objectives 1 and 2, this working group developed two web-based decision support tools to help farmers and agricultural advisors examine production, financial, and environmental outcomes of different climate scenarios and management options. AgClimate View (ACV) is a convenient way to access station-level historical climate and crop yield data for the U.S. Corn Belt. The Growing Degree Days (GDD) Tool allows users to track real-time and historical GDD accumulations, assess frost risk, and guide decisions related to planting, harvest, seed selection, and marketing. These tools are available at www.AgClimate4U.org. Several other prototype, spreadsheet-based tools have also been developed. Objective 4 Accomplishments: U2U team members participated in eight outreach events to train farmers and public/private agricultural advisors on using the ACV and GDD tools. Two online tool usability tests were conducted with Extension educators. Results from these surveys showed improvements in tool usability throughout the reporting period. Seventy-five percent of advisors surveyed were likely to use the second version of the GDD tool, up from 44% with the first version. Respondents also identified over a dozen decisions/problems that could be addressed using the GDD tool. For ACV, 50% of respondents on the second survey indicated they were likely to use the tool compared to 36% from the first survey. Objective 5 Accomplishments: Nothing to report for this period.

Publications

  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Andresen, J., G. Alagarswamy, G. Guentchev, K. Piromsopa, A. Pollyea, G. Soter, J. Van Ravensway, and J. Winkler. 2013. Potential Future Impacts of Climate on Row Crop Production in the Great Lakes Region. In Climate Change in the Midwest: Impacts, Risks, Vulnerability, and Adaptation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Type: Books Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Morton, L.W., and T. Rudel. 2013. Impacts of Climate Change on People & Communities of Rural America. In Rural America in a Globalizing World. West Virginia University Press.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Niyogi, D. 2013. Preface - Vulnerability of Food Resources to Climate. In Climate Vulnerability: Understanding and Addressing Threats to Essential Resources. Oxford: Elsevier Inc., Academic Press.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Niyogi, D., and V. Mishra. 2013. Climate - Agriculture Vulnerability Assessment for the Midwestern United States. In Climate Change in the Midwest: Impacts, Risks, Vulnerability, and Adaptation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., M.C. Lemos, A.S. Mase, and R. Perry-Hill. 2013. Assessing Vulnerabilities and Adaptation Approaches  Useful to Usable Tools. In Climate Vulnerability: Understanding and Addressing Threats to Essential Resources. London, UK: Elsevier Inc., Academic Press.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2013 Citation: Takle, E. S. In Press. Agricultural Meteorology and Climatology. In Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Science 2nd Edition. Elsevier Ltd, Oxford, UK.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Andresen, J. 2013. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. Association of American Geographers 2013 Annual Meeting. Los Angeles, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Carlton, J.S., and L.S. Prokopy. 2013. The effects of the 2012 drought on climate change belief, risk perception, and adaptation among agricultural advisors in the US Corn Belt 19th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Estes Park, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Dai, S., and M.D. Shulski. 2013. Temperature and Precipitation Trends in the Midwest U.S. from 1981 to 2012. Changes: Climate, Water and Life on the Great Plains 2013. Lincoln, NE.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Doering, O. 2013. Extreme weather, climate change, and building resilience into our future. Indiana Soil and Water Conservation Districts Annual Conference. Indianapolis, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Elmore, R. 2013. An Agronomist's Experience Using Crop Models. Indiana CCA Conference. Indianapolis, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Freeland, P. 2013. American Indian & Alaska Native Perceptions of Climate Change Risk, Impact, & Vulnerability: A Content Analysis of News-print Media. 19th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Estes Park, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Kalyanam, R. Zhao, L., Song, C., Wong, W.L., Lee, J., and N. Villoria. 2013 iData: A Community Geospatial Data Sharing Environment to Support Data-driven Science. 2013 XSEDE Conference, San Diego, CA
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Mase, A. and L.S. Prokopy. 2013. Perceptions of Risk from Climate Change: Perspectives of Midwestern Corn Farmers and Advisors. 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Austin, TX.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Mase, A. and L.S. Prokopy. 2013. Climate Change Risks, Information, and Adaptation: Perspectives of Midwestern Agricultural Advisors. 19th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Estes Park, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Massey, R. 2013. Incorporating Fieldwork Days into Equipment Decisions. Southeast MO Soybean Conference. Sikeston, MO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Massey, R. 2013. Incorporating Fieldwork Days into Equipment Decisions. National Farm Business Management Conference. Denver, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: McGuire, J. 2013. Good Farmers in the Corn Belt. Rural Sociological Society Annual Meeting. New York City, NY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: McGuire, J., and L.W. Morton. 2013. The role of farmer identities in addressing water quality in agriculture. 68th International Annual Conference of the Soil and Water Conservation Society. Reno, NV.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2013. Farmers and advisors perceptions of and willingness to use climate information in the Midwestern United States. Second Climate-Smart Agriculture Global Science Conference, Davis, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2013. U2U Update 2013: Partnering with SCs and RCCs, listening to farmers and advisors, developing tools. 38th Annual American Association of State Climatologists Meeting. St. Louis, MO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy, L.S. 2013.. Socio-economic barriers and opportunities for change in agriculture. Sustainable Intensification Conference. Edinburgh, Scotland.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy. L.S., J. Arbuckle, A. Barnes, R. Haden, A. Hogan, M., Lubell, M. Niles, and J. Tyndall. 2013. Farmers and climate change: A cross-national comparison of beliefs and risk perceptions 19th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Estes Park, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., Widhalm, M., Angel, J.R., Haigh, T., Mase, A.S., and D.P. Todey. 2013. If we build it, will they come?: Incorporating survey results of the agricultural community into climate-based decision support tools. 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Austin, TX.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Widhalm, M. 2013. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. Dynamics of Climate Workshop. West Lafayette, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Widhalm, M., Prokopy, L.S., Angel, J.R., and D.P. Todey. 2013. An Integrated Approach to Building Usable Decision Tools for the Agricultural Community. 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Austin, TX.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wilke, A.. 2013. Communicating climate science: Components of engaging the public about risks to agriculture and natural resources. 19th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Estes Park, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wilke, A.. 2013. Communicating climate science: Components of engaging the agricultural audience. Symposium on Science Communication, Ames, Iowa
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wilke, A.. 2013. Communicating Climate Science for Agricultural Management in Corn-Based Cropping Systems. Heartland Regional Water Quality Conference, Overland Park, Kansas.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Umphlett, N. 2013. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. 11th Annual Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Logan, UT.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2013 Citation: Arbuckle, J.G., J. Hobbs, A. Loy, L.W. Morton, L.S. Prokopy, and J. Tyndall. In Press. Understanding farmer perspectives on climate change: Toward effective communication strategies for adaptation and mitigation in the Corn Belt. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Arbuckle, J., L.W. Morton, and J. Hobbs. 2013. Farmer Beliefs and Concerns About Climate Change and Attitudes Towards Adaptive and Mitigative Action. Climatic Change, 118(3-4): 551-563.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2013 Citation: Arbuckle, J., L.W. Morton, and J. Hobbs. In Press. Trust, beliefs, and perceived risk as determinants of farmer support for adaptive and mitigative responses to climate change. Environment and Behavior.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Arbuckle, J.G., L.S. Prokopy, T. Haigh, J. Hobbs, T. Knoot, C. L. Knutson, A. Loy, A.S. Mase, J. McGuire, L.W. Morton, J. Tyndall, and M. Widhalm. 2013. Corn Belt Farmers and Climate Change: Beliefs, Perceived Risk, and Support for Action. Climatic Change Letters,117(4): 943-950.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2013 Citation: Carlton, J.S., Angel, J.R., Fei, S., Huber, M., Koontz, T., MacGowan, B.J., Mullendore, N.D., Babin, N., and L.S. Prokopy. In Press. State service foresters attitudes toward using climate and weather information when advising forest landowners. Journal of Forestry.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Gramig, B.M., J.M. Barnard, and L.S. Prokopy. 2013. Farmer Beliefs About Climate Change and Carbon Sequestration Incentives. Climate Research, 56(2): 157-167. doi:10.3354/cr01142.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2013 Citation: Mase, A.S., and L.S. Prokopy. In Press. Unrealized potential: A review of perceptions and use of weather and climate information in agricultural decision making. Weather, Climate and Society.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy, L., T. Haigh, A.S. Mase, J. Angel, C. Hart, C. Knutson, M.C. Lemos, Y. Lo, J. McGuire, L.W. Morton, J. Perron, D. Todey, and M. Widhalm. 2013. Agricultural Advisors: A Receptive Audience for Weather and Climate Information? Weather, Climate, and Society, 5:162-167.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2013 Citation: Prokopy, L.S., C.E. Hart, R. Massey, M. Widhalm, J. Andresen, J. Angel, T. Blewett, O.C. Doering, R. Elmore, B.M. Gramig, P. Guinan, B.L. Hall, A. Jain, C.L. Knutson, M.C. Lemos, L.W. Morton, D. Niyogi, R. Power, M.D. Shulski, C. X. Song, E.S. Takle, and D. Todey. In Review. Improving team communication for enhanced delivery of agro-climate decision support tools. Agricultural Systems
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Song,Y., Jain, A.K., and McIsaac,G.F. 2013. Implementation of Dynamic Crop Growth Processes into a Land Surface Model: Evaluation of Energy, Water and Carbon Fluxes Under Corn and Soybean Rotation Biogeosciences 10: 9897-9945.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2013 Citation: Liu, X. 2013. A Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) Based Dataset for Regional Agro-climatic Assessments. Graduate Thesis and Dissertations, Purdue University.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Niyogi, D., Liu, X., Andresen, A., Jain, A.K., Kumar, A., Kellner, O., and A.A. Elias. 2013. Can Crop Models Simulate the ENSO Impacts on Regional Corn Yield in U.S. Corn Belt? American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2013. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Andresen, J., Jain, A.K., Niyogi, D., Alagarswamy, G., Biehl, L., Delamater, P., Doering, O., Elias, A.A., Elmore, R., Gramig, B., Hart, C., Kellner, O., Liu, X., Mohankuar, E., Prokopy, L.S., Song, C., Todey, D., and M. Widhalm. 2013. Assessing the Impact of Climatic Variability and Change on Maize Production in the Midwestern USA. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2013. San Francisco, CA.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2013 Citation: Takle, E.S., C.J. Anderson, J. Andresen, J. Angel, R. Elmore, B.M. Gramig, P. Guinan, S. Hilberg, D. Kluck, R. Massey, D. Niyogi, J. Schneider, M. Shulski, D. Todey, and M. Widhalm. In Press. Climate Forecasts for Corn Producer Decision-Making. Earth Interactions
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wilke, A. 2013. Climatologists Methods of Climate Science Communication to Agriculture in the North Central Region of the United States. Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Iowa State University. http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/13185.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Doering, O. 2013. Agriculture and Climate Change. Resource Magazine (ASABE), July/August
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Hart, C. 2013. "A Little Bit of Winter in Springtime." Iowa Farm Outlook. May 2013. p. 7-9.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Hart, C. 2013. "Ocean-front Property." Iowa Farm Outlook. June 2013. p. 2-5.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Hart, C. 2013. "National Crop Outlook Continues to be Good." Iowa Farm Outlook. August 2013. p. 7-9.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Loy, A., Hobbs, J., Arbuckle Jr., J.G., Morton, L.W., Prokopy, L.S., Haigh, T., Knoot, T., Knutson, C., Mase, A.S., McGuire, J., Tyndall, J., and M. Widhalm. 2013. Farmer Perspectives on Agriculture and Weather Variability in the Corn Belt: A Statistical Atlas. CSCAP 0153-2013. Ames, IA: Cropping Systems Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP): Climate Change, Mitigation, and Adaptation in Corn-based Cropping Systems.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Feb 2013.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Jun 2013.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Sept 2013.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Useful to Usable (U2U). U2U Quarterly E-Newsletter. Dec 2013.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Lory, J., Massey, R., and Guinan, P. 2013. Integrating Probable Field Work Days into Nutrient Management Plan. Waste to Worth: Spreading Science and Solutions. Denver, CO.


Progress 04/15/12 to 04/13/13

Outputs
OUTPUTS: OBJ. 1: A cyber-infrastructure framework for managing crop and climate model input and output datasets, model validation activities, and tool development tasks has been established. The iData tool, a web-based interface that enables users to self-publish, manage and share scientific datasets, was developed. An extensive evaluation of model input and output requirements, available data sources, visualization needs, and tool development considerations has been completed. Numerous datasets required for modeling activities (including site-specific and gridded climate, agronomic and soils data) have been identified, and, where applicable, integrated into a database for common use among the modeling teams. A project modeling framework protocol was developed to ensure complimentary and comparable output would be generated by the DSSAT, HM, and ISAM modeling systems. A process-based dynamic crop model was developed within the ISAM system to explore the productivity of row crops and their responses to water, climate, and soil stresses. Work was initiated on a study to identify agroclimatic trends for 15 locations from 1900-2011. A time series analysis examining the relationships among field work days, weather, planting and harvest progress, and yield has been conducted. State-level economic case studies were initiated. OBJ. 2: The producer and advisor climate needs assessment surveys were completed. For the producer assessment, the social science teams from U2U and CS-CAP project surveyed nearly 19,000 corn producers in 22 HUC6 watersheds. For the advisor climate needs assessment, about 7,500 public and private agricultural advisors in 4 states (IA, IN, MI, and NE) and about 1,000 Extension personnel in 12 states were surveyed. A pilot focus group with 13 Indiana farmers was conducted at Purdue University on July 9, 2012. A graduate student conducted interviews with 22 Extension and Regional Climatologist in the Corn Belt to assess their role in diffusing climate information for agricultural management. Interviews associated with a pilot network analysis study in two Michigan watersheds have been initiated. OBJ. 3: The U2U public website has been expanded to include links to existing resources for the region, including agro-climate reports, decision support tools, weather/climate condition maps, drought information, U.S. climate outlooks, and more. Work on two prototype decision support tools has been initiated. PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Team members have participated in 90 team and objective-specific conference calls and 7 in-person meetings. Publication and authorship guidelines were established, and 11 scholarly publications related to recent work are in prep or under review. A quarterly U2U e-newsletter was launched. Since March 2012 our public website has received 1,897 visits and 3,862 page views from visitors in 34 countries. Team members have given 40 verbal and 12 poster presentations at 27 meetings/conferences. Special U2U sessions were held at the American Agricultural & Applied Economics Association annual meeting (Aug 2012) and at the American Society of Agronomy annual meeting (Oct 2012). PARTICIPANTS: The U2U project has 22 Co-Project Directors, plus additional staff and students, affiliated with 10 universities and 2 Regional Climate Centers (Midwest and High Plains). Purdue Univ.: Linda Prokopy (Project Director), Melissa Widhalm (Project Manager), Eslam AlMorshdy, Corinne Alexander, Larry Biehl, Stuart Carlton, June Cheng, Otto Doering, Ani Elias, Bruce Erickson, Sajeev E.M., Patrick Freeland, Ben Gramig, Olivia Kellner, Xing Liu, Amber Mase, Dev Niyogi, Paul Preckel, Rebecca Pritchard, Carol Song, YuetLing Wong, Lan Zhao, Shandian Zhe; Iowa State Univ.: Roger Elmore, Chad Hart, Jean McGuire, Lois Wright Morton, Eugene Takle, Adam Wilke; Michigan State Univ.: Gopal Alagarswamy, Jeff Andresen, Jim Hilker, Mike Holp; South Dakota State Univ.: Dennis Todey; Univ. of Illinois: Jim Angel, Beth Hall, Steve Bassil El-Masari, Hilberg, Atul Jain, Yang Song; Univ. of Michigan: Youngmi Lee, Maria Lemos, Yun-Jia Lo, Jennifer Perron; Univ. of Minnesota: Tom Bartholomay, Whitney Meridith; Univ. of Missouri: Pat Guinan, Ray Massey; Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln: Juliana Dai, Tonya Haigh, Cody Knutson, Martha Shulski, William Sorensen; Tapan Pathak, Natalie Umphlett; Univ. of Wisconsin: Tom Blewett, Jenna Klink, John Kriva, Rebecca Power. The U2U Advisory Committee includes: Patrick Arthur, Tom Bartholomay, Jamie Benning, Kathryn Brasier, Steven Crimp, Clyde Fraisse, Doug Kluck, Ken Kunkel, David Miller, Ray Motha, Ray Riley, Jeanne Schneider, Dave Sieck, Daniel Wildcat, and Dave Williams. Bill Northcott worked as a consultant for the U2U project at Michigan State University. U2U project partners have worked in close collaboration with the socio-economic research team (J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr., John Tyndall, and Tricia Knott) of the CS-CAP project (Climate Change, Mitigation, and Adaptation in Corn-Based Cropping Systems - Dr. Lois Wright Morton, Project Director, Iowa State Univ.). U2U partners are also actively networking and exploring future collaborations with the systems analysis team within the CS-CAP project, as well as with researchers involved in Cornell University's Adapt-N web-based nitrogen management tool. TARGET AUDIENCES: Goverment agricultural policy makers, farmers, risk management and crop insurance advisors. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
Our goal is to improve farm resilience and profitability by transforming climate information into usable tools that support agricultural decision making under variable climate conditions. Decision tool development is just getting underway, but tangible outcomes that benefit researchers, Extension educators and other stakeholders are already being realized. SURVEY RESULTS: Our crop producer and advisor surveys have generated a substantial amount of new knowledge that will contribute to the social science literature and inform decision tool development. Our findings show significant relationships between farmers' and advisors' climate change beliefs and how climate risks are perceived, their willingness to use climate information, their beliefs about risk management practices and responsibilities, and who they trust for farm management and climate change information. MODEL RESULTS: Initial results of our agroclimatic trends assessment based on the DSSAT model suggests that a trend towards greater annual precipitation across much of the region during the past 50-60 years has resulted in more favorable growing conditions for corn. Specifically, the increases in precipitation have reduced the frequency and severity of water stress during the growing season, resulting in relatively higher crop yields (beyond the effects of improved technology). While there are still individual years or sections of the region in which prolonged or excessive dryness is a problem, long term trends suggest a net reduction of drought-related risk for growers. MODEL DEVELOPMENT: The development of a process-based dynamic crop model within the ISAM model marks a significant improvement to this particular modeling system, and one that is of considerable interest to the climate modeling community. PARTNERSHIPS: We have established multiple connections with the USDA-NIFA-funded CS-CAP project to 1) continue analyzing survey data and 2) utilize their broad network of Extension educator "super trainers." These educators will assist us in designing decision tools and they will be valuable partners in disseminating climate resources to Corn Belt farmers and advisors throughout the life of the U2U project, and beyond. Several team members participated in the North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Carbon, Energy, and Climate Conference to help others in the region with their education efforts. U2U social scientists are collaborating with researchers at the Australian National University and the Scottish Agricultural College to identify similarities and differences in farmers' perceptions and attitudes of climate change among the three countries. We have been invited to speak at 2 upcoming international conferences regarding agriculture and climate change in the Midwestern US. EVALUATION: Internal process evaluations have been positive and have shown our team is working well together. There is a high level of trust and respect among project participants, and team members feel optimistic about our progress and future prospects.

Publications

  • Morton, L.W. 2012. What Does Social Science Tell Us About Farmer Perceptions of Climate Change, Adaptation and Mitigation 2012 Land Grant and Sea Grant National Water Conference. Portland, OR.
  • Niyogi, D., and X. Liu. 2012. Adaptability of the Hybrid-Maize Model and the Development of a Gridded Crop Modeling System for the Midwest US. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Niyogi, D., and V. Mishra. 2013. Climate - Agriculture Vulnerability Assessment for the Midwestern United States. In Climate Change in the Midwest: Impacts, Risks, Vulnerability, and Adaptation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Pritchard, R., A.S. Mase, and L. Prokopy. 2012. Farmer Focus Group Informs Climate-Based Decision Support Tools. 10th Summer Undergraduate Research Initiative Fellowship (SURF) Research Symposium. West Lafayette, IN.
  • Prokopy, L.S. 2012. Engaging Agricultural Stakeholders in Climate Change Adaptation. Climate Change & Small Grains Production Workshop. Lexington, KY.
  • Prokopy, L.S. 2012. Useful to Usable: Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. Southeast Climate Consortium Annual Meeting. Auburn, Alabama.
  • Prokopy, L.S. 2012. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. 2012 Land Grant and Sea Grant National Water Conference. Portland, OR.
  • Prokopy, L.S. 2012. Useful to Usable: Combining Climate Science and Social Science to Develop Decision Support Tools for Corn Producers and Advisors. North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Carbon, Energy, and Climate Conference. Hickory Corners, MI.
  • Andresen, J., G. Alagarswamy, G. Guentchev, K. Piromsopa, A. Pollyea, G. Soter, J. Van Ravensway, and J. Winkler. 2013. Potential Future Impacts of Climate on Row Crop Production in the Great Lakes Region. In Climate Change in the Midwest: Impacts, Risks, Vulnerability, and Adaptation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Andresen, J., G. Alagarswamy, B. Northcott, and A. Pollyea. 2012. Impacts of Weather and Climate On Corn and Soybean Production In the Midwestern USA, 1900-2010. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH. Angel, J. 2012. U2U Agricultural Advisor Survey on Climate Issues. American Association of State Climatologists Annual Meeting. Miramar Beach, FL.
  • Angel, J. 2012. The 2010 and 2011 Growing Seasons In Illinois: Insights Into the Impacts of Wetter Spring, and Hotter, Drier Summers of Possible Future Climate Change. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Doering, O. 2013. Extreme weather, climate change, and building resilience into our future Indiana Soil and Water Conservation Districts Annual Conference. Indianapolis, IN.
  • Elmore, R. 2012. Understanding the Effect of Dry Planting Conditions On Potential Corn Yield: A Modeling Study. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Elmore, R. 2013. An Agronomist's Experience Using Crop Models. Indiana CCA Conference. Indianapolis, IN.
  • Freeland, P. 2011. Useful to Usable: Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers in the North Central Region. American Indian Native Alaskan Climate Change Working Group. Keshena, WI.
  • Gramig, B. 2012. Historical Analysis of Field Work Days, 1980-2010. American Agricultural & Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting. Seattle, WA.
  • Gramig, B. 2012. The Influence of Climate On Days Available for Field Work: Trends and Economic Implications, 1980-2010. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Guinan, P. 2012. Missouri Climate Patterns. In Adapting to Climate Change: Gaining the Advantage. Columbia, MO.
  • Guinan, P., and R. Massey. 2012. Useful to Usable: Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. Adapting to Climate Change: Gaining the Advantage. Columbia, MO.
  • Hart, C. 2012. Adaptive Strategies for Maximizing Productivity and Profitability While Reducing the Impact of Climate-related Risks. American Agricultural & Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting. Seattle, WA.
  • Mase, A. and L.S. Prokopy. 2013. Perceptions of Risk from Climate Change: Perspectives of Midwestern Corn Farmers and Advisors. 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Austin, TX.
  • Massey, R. 2012. Crop Production Adaption to Climate Change. Adapting to Climate Change: Gaining the Advantage. Columbia, MO.
  • Massey, R. 2012. Decision Calendar to Connect Intra- and Inter-seasonal Agricultural Weather/Climate Information. American Agricultural & Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting. Seattle, WA.
  • McGuire, J., J.G. Arbuckle, and L.W. Morton. 2012. Who Is a Good Farmer Rural Sociological Society Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL.
  • McGuire, J., and T. Haigh. 2012. Climate Change Concerns, Beliefs, and Information Needs of Agricultural Advisors in the Midwestern United States. Rural Sociological Society Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL.
  • McGuire, J., L.W. Morton, and A. Cast. 2012. Reconstructing the Good Farmer Identity: Shifts in Farmer Identities and Farm Management Practices to Improve Water Quality. Agriculture and Human Values: 1-13. doi:10.1007/s10460-012-9381-y.
  • Jain, A., and Y. Song. 2012. Impact of Climate Change and Variability on Crop Productivity. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2012. San Francisco, CA.
  • Knutson, C. L., L.S. Prokopy, A.S. Mase, M. Widhalm, and J. McGuire. 2012. Agricultural Advisors Use of Climate Information and Beliefs About Climate Change Impacts. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Lemos, M.C., C. Kirchhoff, and V. Ramparasad. 2012. Making Climate Information Usable: Bridging the Knowledge-decision Making Gap. Nature Climate Change 2 (11): 789-94.
  • Liu, X., D. Niyogi, and U. Charusombat. 2012. Estimating Corn Yields Regionally Across Midwest Using the Hybrid Maize Model with a Land Data Assimilation System. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2012. San Francisco, CA.
  • Prokopy, L.S. 2012. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Prokopy, L.S. 2012. Using Partnerships to Improve Climate-Based Decision Tools in the Corn Belt. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Prokopy, L.S. 2012. Moving From Useful to Usable: The Role of Social Science in Improving the Delivery of Climate Information. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Prokopy, L., T. Haigh, C. Knutson, M.C. Lemos, Y. Lo, A.S. Mase, J. McGuire, L.W. Morton, J. Perron, M. Widhalm, and A. Wilke. 2012. Climate Change Concerns, Beliefs, and Information Needs of Agricultural Advisors in the Midwestern United States. 18th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management. Alberta, Canada.
  • Prokopy, L.S., and M. Widhalm. 2012. Working Together to Deliver Usable Climate Information to Agricultural Producers and Advisors in the U.S. Corn Belt. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2012. San Francisco, CA.
  • Prokopy, L.S., Widhalm, M., Angel, J.R., Haigh, A., Mase, A.S., and D.P. Todey. 2013. If we build it, will they come: Incorporating survey results of the agricultural community into climate-based decision support tools. 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Austin, TX.
  • Song, Y., P. Meiyappan, M. Liang, A. Jain, M. Khanna, and H. Huang. 2011. An Integrated Biogeochemical, Biophysical, and Economic Analysis of Bioenergy Crops. 96th Ecological Society of American Annual Meeting. Austin, TX.
  • Takle, E.S., C.J. Anderson, J. Andresen, J. Angel, R. Elmore, B.M. Gramig, P. Guinan, S. Hilberg, D. Kluck, R. Massey, D. Niyogi, J. Schneider, M. Shulski, D. Todey, and M. Widhalm. 2013. Climate Forecasts for Corn Producer Decision-Making. Eos (in review)
  • Prokopy, L.S., A.S. Mase, and Y. Lo. 2012. Climate Change Concerns, Beliefs, and Information Needs of Midwestern Producers. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Todey, D. 2011. What to Expect from Extreme Weather DTN Pro-Farmer Summit. Chicago, IL.
  • Todey, D. 2012. The Role of State Climatologists As Climate Service Providers. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Useful to Usable (U2U). 2012. Project Fact Sheet. Available at https://drinet.hubzero.org/resources/485/download/U2U_FactSheet_Oct20 12.pdf
  • Widhalm, M., and L.S. Prokopy. 2012. U2U: Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meetings. Cincinnati, OH.
  • Widhalm, M., Prokopy, L.S., Angel, J.R., and D.P. Todey. 2013. An Integrated Approach to Building Usable Decision Tools for the Agricultural Community. 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Austin, TX.
  • Wilke, A. 2012. Diffusing Scientific Climate Information for Agriculture Management. American Association of State Climatologists Annual Meeting. Miramar Beach, FL.
  • Wilke, A., and L.W. Morton. 2012. Diffusing Scientific Climate Information Into Agricultural Management Support Tools. Rural Sociological Society Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL.
  • Wilke, A., and L.W. Morton. 2013. Communicating Climate Science for Agricultural Management in Corn-Based Cropping Systems. 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Austin, TX.


Progress 04/15/11 to 04/13/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: The U2U project has 5 primary objectives to be completed throughout the life of the grant. Only tasks associated with Objectives 1 and 2 were scheduled to be underway in year 1. The following summarizes outputs for April 15, 2011 - January 13, 2012. The Objective 1 working group's primary focus has been on collecting/processing data, initiating crop model development, and building a cyber-infrastructure foundation. Regarding data, we have: collected and quality controlled 1-2 representative datasets for each state (includes climate, yield, and soil data), collected select Ameriflux datasets, collected and formatted NASS historic field work days and crop progress data, and started processing NLDAS gridded datasets (temperature, precipitation, solar radiation and soil). Experiments with downscaling approaches and verification of NLDAS are underway. Soil moisture balance model testing and gridding has been initiated. Testing of satellite products and NLDAS fields for evapotranspiration (ET) regional mapping have occurred. Regarding crop modeling, we have: identified 3 models to simulate past and future yield data (DSSAT, Hybrid-Maize, ISAM), and initiated model validation, calibration, and gridding (4-km). Regarding cyber-infrastructure, HUBzero technology is being used to establish a common platform for model simulation and data access (gridded and site-specific model inputs and outputs), and enable data visualizations. A cyber-infrastructure development plan has been established, and data interface and transformation testing is underway. The Objective 2 working group's primary focus has been on developing a producer survey, an advisor survey, and a network analysis plan. For the Producer Survey, we have: established a partnership with CS-CAP researchers (see participants section), developed a survey sampling methodology, secured additional funding to expand the survey effort, developed and tested survey questions, received IRB approval to conduct survey, and sent finalized survey instrument to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) for distribution to farmers. For the Advisor Survey, we have: identified key agricultural advisor groups in the Midwest, developed contact list of all advisors, developed and tested survey questions, submitted IRB paperwork, and developed survey website using Qualtrics software. For the Social Network Analysis we have developed a draft methodology. At the administrative level, we have: hired a project manager, held an annual (2-day) project meeting, developed internal and public websites, established a team meeting schedule and project evaluation schedule, designed a logo/brand, and developed factsheets and other informational materials about the U2U project. We have also started engaging our Advisory Committee. Given the early stage of the project, results and products have not yet been disseminated to stakeholders. However, general information about the U2U project has been presented to researchers, farmers, and crop advisors at several national and regional conferences and events. PARTICIPANTS: The U2U project has 22 Co-Project Directors, plus additional staff and students, affiliated with 10 universities and 2 Regional Climate Centers (Midwest and High Plains). Purdue Univ.: Linda Prokopy (Project Director), Melissa Widhalm (Project Manager), Corinne Alexander, Larry Biehl, Otto Doering, Bruce Erickson, Patrick Freeland, Ben Gramig, Xing Liu, Dev Niyogi, Paul Preckel, Amber Saylor, Carol Song, Lan Zhao; Iowa State Univ.: Roger Elmore, Chad Hart, Jean McGuire, Lois Wright Morton, Eugene Takle, Adam Wilke; Michigan State Univ.: Gopal Alagarswamy, Jeff Andresen, Jim Hilker; South Dakota State Univ.: Dennis Todey; Univ. of Illinois: Jim Angel, Steve Hilberg, Atul Jain; Univ. of Michigan: Yun Jia, Youngmi Lee, Maria Lemos, Jennifer Perron; Univ. of Minnesota: Tom Bartholomay, Whitney Meridith; Univ. of Missouri: Pat Guinan, Ray Massey; Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln: Juliana Dai, Tonya Haigh, Cody Knutson, Martha Shulski, William Sorensen; Tapan Pathak, Natalie Umphlett; Univ. of Wisconsin: Tom Blewett, John Kriva, Jeff Mullins, Rebecca Power. The U2U Advisory Committee includes: Patrick Arthur, Steven Crimp, Clyde Fraisse, Doug Kluck, Ken Kunkel, David Miller, Ray Motha, Ray Riley, Jeanne Schneider, Dave Sieck, Daniel Wildcat, and Dave Williams. Two consultants on the U2U project include Robert Mera and Bill Northcot. U2U project partners have worked in close collaboration with the socio-economic research team (J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr., John Tyndall, and Tricia Knott) of the CS-CAP project (Climate Change, Mitigation, and Adaptation in Corn-Based Cropping Systems - Dr. Lois Wright Morton, Project Director, Iowa State Univ.). The U2U team is working with researchers at the University of Kentucky (Rebecca McCulley, David Van Sanford, and Kathleen Russell). U2U partners are also actively networking and exploring future collaborations with the systems analysis and education/outreach teams within the CS-CAP project, as well as with researchers involved in Cornell University's Adapt-N web-based nitrogen management tool. TARGET AUDIENCES: Midwestern corn/soybean producers; agricultural advisors; extension educators; researchers PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
Corn producers in the Midwest can benefit from incorporating climate information into their strategic and tactical farm management planning. This project seeks to enhance the usability of climate information for agricultural producers and advisors by developing decision support products that can assist with crop production tasks, infrastructure/equipment investments, and the use of conservation and climate adaptation practices. At this early stage in the project, the most notable outcomes involve administrative accomplishments, stakeholder engagement activities, and cross-project collaboration development. We have hired a project manager and developed an internal web-based collaboration site to support cross-disciplinary research, data sharing, and team communication. Monthly team meetings have been initiated, and a project evaluation schedule established. Results from our first internal process evaluation show the U2U team is functioning well as a collaborative body, and that appropriate progress is being made toward grant objectives. We have developed and widely promoted the U2U "brand" to researchers, farmers, and educators throughout the Midwest and beyond. As part of this branding effort we have developed a logo and presentation template. U2U investigators have participated in several formal and informal conferences and public events. We have launched a public website that is regularly updated with project information and relevant resources for stakeholders, including a three-part webinar series and factsheets highlighting U2U research activities. As a result of our promotional activities and team networking efforts we have broadened our associations outside of the U2U project. We have developed a close partnership with CS-CAP researchers, allowing us to leverage resources and enhance our social science activities. Notably, the joint team was able to secure additional funding for survey activities, which enabled us to expand our producer survey to cover a significantly greater number of farmers in the Midwest. This expansion will lead to diverse survey results, and subsequently, more applicable decision support tools. We have partnered with researchers at the University of Kentucky to survey wheat advisors in western Kentucky about climate information needs and climate change beliefs. This effort allows us to replicate our survey methods outside the Midwest and compare responses between corn- and wheat-based systems. Several U2U investigators helped organize, and participated in, the 9th Annual Climate Prediction Applications Science (CPAS) Workshop. Knowledge shared and ideas spawned from this workshop have helped shape tasks within the U2U project, and it helped foster relationships that will be beneficial to U2U in upcoming years. The development of additional partnerships related to crop modeling, decision support, and education/outreach are also underway.

Publications

  • Andresen, J. 2011. Past and Potential Future Impacts of Climate on Crop Production in the Great Lakes Region, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), Ninth Annual Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Des Moines, IA, March 1, 2011.
  • Andresen, J. 2011. GLISA: The Great Lakes Regional Climate Assessment, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), Ninth Annual Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Des Moines, IA, March 1, 2011.
  • Charusombat, U., and Niyogi, D. 2011. A Hydroclimatological Assessment of the Regional Drought Vulnerability: Indiana Drought, 2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts, West Lafayette, IN. June 2011, Paper 27.
  • Charusombat, U., and Niyogi, D. 2011. Exploring the Link Between Droughts and Atmospheric Aerosol Loading, 2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts, West Lafayette, IN. June 2011, Paper 3.
  • Charusombat, U., Niyogi, D., Garrigues, S., Olioso, A., Marloie, O., Barlage, M., Chen, F., Ek, M., Wang, X., and Wu, Z. 2011. Noah-GEM and Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) based downscaling of Global Reanalysis surface fields: Evaluations using observations from a CarboEurope agricultural site, COMPAG, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (accepted).
  • Gutowski, W. J. Jr., Arritt, R. W., Kawazoe, S., Flory, D. M., Takle, E. M., Biner, S., Caya, D., Jones, R. G., Laprise, R., Leung, L. R., Mearns, L. O., Moufouma-Okia, W., Nunes, A. M. B., Qian, Y., Roads, J. O., Sloan, L. C., and Snyder, M. A. 2011. Regional, Extreme Monthly Precipitation Simulated by NARCCAP RCMs, J. Hydromet. doi: 10.1175/2010JHM1297.1
  • Niyogi, D., and Andresen, J. 2011. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA. December 5-9, 2011.
  • Pielke, R. A., Pitman, A., Niyogi, D., Mahmood, R., McAlpine, C., Hossain, F., Goldewijk, K., Nair, U., Betts, R., Fall, S., Reichstein, M., Kabat, P., and de Noblet, N. 2011. Land use/land cover changes and climate: modeling analysis and observational evidence, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. doi: 10.1002/wcc.144
  • Prokopy, L. 2011. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), Ninth Annual Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Des Moines, IA, March 1, 2011.
  • Prokopy, L. 2011. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), Agricultural Decision Making with a Water and Climate Change Perspective Regional Conference, Nebraska City, NE, November 1-3, 2011.
  • Prokopy, L., Andresen, J., Niyogi, D., Shulski, M., and Todey, D. 2011. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), American Meteorological Society 19th Conference on Applied Climatology, Asheville, NC. July 18-20, 2011.
  • Song, C. 2011. The role of cyberinfrastructure in disaster mitigation, research and education, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk 2011 Conference (IRDR) Booklet, Beijing, China. November, 2011.
  • Takle, E. S, Gustafson, D., Beachy, R., Nelson, G. C., Mason-Dcroz, D., and Palazzo, A. 2011. US Food Security and Climate Change: Agriculture Futures, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), International Conference on Climate Change and Food Security, Beijing, China, November 2011.
  • Widhalm, M. 2011. Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, Poster Summary and Unified Abstracts of the 2011 CSCAP Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, November 8-10, 2011.
  • Wu, F., Bhatnagar, D., Bui-Klimke, T., Carbone, I., Hellmich, R., Munkvold, G. P., Paul, P. A., Payne, G., and Takle, E. S. 2011. Climate change impacts on mycotoxin risks in US maize, World Mycotoxin Journal, 4, 79-93.
  • Zhao L., Song, C. X., Lee, J., Kim, J., Feng, W., Merwade, V., and Villoria, N.B. 2011. Bring integrated GIS data and modeling capabilities into HUBzero platform, Electronic conference proceedings (abstract), The 2nd International Workshop on High Performance and Distributed Geographic Information Systems (HPDGIS 2011), Chicago, IL. November 1, 2011.