Grant helps UT develop support tool for extreme weather events

University of Tennessee at Knoxville

 

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Credit: University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee and the UT Institute of Agriculture have received a $434,038 Seeding Solutions grant from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) to develop and test a decision support tool for farmers to better manage crop production from risks of extreme weather events across the Tennessee River Basin and surrounding southeast US regions.

UT is providing matching funds for a total investment of $966,119 over the three-year project.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that extreme weather is responsible for 90% of crop losses. These estimates are generally based on annual climate conditions. However, extreme short-term weather events, termed “flash” droughts and floods, can severely impact crop production. These events have not been researched to the same extent, leading to development of better crop management tools for farmers.

Using novel combinations of watershed hydrology models and monitoring data, including satellites and on-site field monitoring, UT researchers, led by John Schwartz, the director of the Tennessee Water Resources Research Center and professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, are developing a decision support tool allowing stakeholders to prepare for unpredictable conditions brought about by flash floods and drought. The collaborative research team includes Ming Jin, director of the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, and Brian Leib and Shawn Hawkins with the UT Institute of Agriculture.

The researchers are exploring how existing hydrologic and crop models can be combined with historical trends and current monitoring data to inform crop choice, irrigation needs, and farm management. Results are expected to help minimize crop losses and increase yield, maximize water use efficiency, and enhance the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change.

“The decision support tool for row crop producers being developed by our UT research team will provide them useful predictive information,” Schwartz said. “It will be particularly useful for short-term weather hazards, considering in recent years weather patterns in this region have more often shifted to a wetter spring followed by a flash drought early summer, which creates producer challenges of when to plant and whether irrigation is needed.”