qual 70 percent of the MAD level, the dryness index column will display a single red asterisk. Without rain or irrigation, more asterisks will appear in the following days. Avoid letting the index reach 100 percent of the irrigation trigger, which is represented by a XXX in the dryness index. Once a field's soil becomes dry, crop yield is lost.
If the dryness index in the application does not match soil moisture sensors or visual indicators of crop water stress, fine-tune the field setup by adjusting the rooting depth or allowed depletion percentage.
Field Status screen for checking daily soil water deficits in individual fields.
Main menu screen for checking soil water dryness indexes for the next week.
Enter rainfall and irrigation amounts
Two options are available for entering rainfall and irrigation events. Click on the water spigot symbol in a field row to navigate to the Add/Edit Precipitation and Irrigation page (Figure 11). If you selected Yes for NWS rainfall in setup, the third column will be NWS Precip. To override NWS for a specific day, enter your observed value in the column labeled Field Precip. The rainfall amounts that are underlined indicate which value the application is using for that day. The NWS amount will still be displayed, but it will not be used by the application.
To enter rainfall amounts, click on a cell in the Field Precip column corresponding to the date that field received precipitation. Likewise for irrigation, click on the Field Irrig column to enter amounts of irrigation applied. The default irrigation rate entered during setup will appear on a new screen, but it can be modified before clicking Submit, if necessary (Figure 12). When you submit changes with Add/Edit Precipitation and Irrigation for one field, to save time, you can also copy those changes to other fields on your farm. A list of all your other fields will be displayed. When other fields receive the same amount of irrigation, click the check boxes beside their names at the bottom of the page.
Unfortunately, the 24-hour period for rainfall at the National Weather Service is not midnight to midnight. It is mid-morning to mid-morning, so late-afternoon rainfall will not be posted in the application until 6 a.m. the next day. If you have an observed measurement of rainfall, such as from a rain gauge, enter it rather than waiting for an NWS update. If the NWS shows a rainfall amount but none actually occurred, enter 0 in the Field Precip column. If other fields on the farm also received the same amount of rainfall, click the check boxes beside their names at the bottom of the page.
To access a report for printing, go to Report in the main menu (Figure 13). Select the field to print and click Print.
The Crop Stage page allows you track the growing degree days based on maximum and minimum daily temperatures for crops in your fields. For some crops, such as cotton, scientists at the University of Missouri Fisher Delta Research Center are developing recommendations relative to the current growth stage. To access the recommendation, click the black box in the last column (Figure 14).
The Weather page provides links to real-time weather stations in your region. The weather is updated several times each hour and can be useful for helping make decisions about your farm, such as whether it is too windy to spray.
The Tech Support page shows contact information for staff at the University of Missouri who can help you with irrigation management.
Edit precipitation and irrigation amounts for a field.
To save time, check boxes next to other fields irrigated at the same rate.
Example field reports showing daily rainfall, irrigations and crop evapotranspiration.
The Crop Stage function shows the predicted growth stage for plants in a field.