xes for each field assumed historical evapotranspiration, or ET, for the projected days and no rainfall will occur in the next week. Fields can be printed out to distribute to farm workers.
Example graph of soil water balance over a four-week period, with an irrigation trigger point of -0.90 inch.
Farmers using the Crop Water Use application might be eligible to receive federal funds from Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). To promote water conservation and reduce nutrient runoff in streams, the EQIP pays farmers in designated watersheds to use this application. Starting in 2015, the Crop Water Use application met the criteria for the Missouri 2015 General Conservation Stewardship Program, Enhancement Activity NRCS Code WQT07 (Regional weather networks for irrigation scheduling). The application has a reporting option that allows users to print season-long results for each field, which can be used as documentation to receive EQIP payments at the end of the year from the NRCS. This report could also be used to calculate the amount of water pumped per field or well for a field.
An example of a daily farm summary report from irrigated fields managed by the Fisher Delta Research Center Cropping Systems Project.
On the next screen, you have the option to either launch the application and bookmark the link or request the URL by email.
If you request an email link, you will receive an email containing a URL with a unique combination of 32 numbers and letters to link to your account. Only share your unique URL with people you trust. You can copy and paste the URL to your computer and mobile phone to save time not having to type in a password every day to check your fields.
The Crop Water Use application requires daily weather data from the Missouri weather station Mesonet to function. Currently, the program only works when you have internet access by Wi-Fi or a cellular data connection.
Screen for new users and login for existing accounts.
Using your unique URL, go to your Crop Water Use application account. The first screen that will appear is the main menu screen (Figure 7). This is the starting place to add new fields, enter soil and crop information, monitor daily soil moisture, log rainfall and irrigation amounts, and request field reports.
The main menu screen in the mobile app.
Click Add Field in the fourth row of the main menu screen. On the next screen, enter a field name and decimal degrees for north latitude and west longitude that are both positive numbers (e.g., Lat: 36.4151365N, Long: 89.7010119W). If you enter west longitude as a negative number, the program will correct it without error. You will have the option to find your field using Google Maps.
Be sure you have entered the correct GPS location for the field before clicking Submit. The location cannot be changed after you submit it, but it is easy to delete and re-enter a field. Although the latitude and longitude are locked in, soil texture for a field can be changed later if needed.
Enter the dominant five-digit NRCS soil series code for the field or select the dominant soil texture for the field. This is used to estimate available soil water holding capacity. For more information about soils, go to http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm.
Click Submit and then Back to main menu. The next step is setting up crop information. In the main menu, click Setup Soils and Crops. Then scroll to the field name and click the Choose Crops button under Crops in the column on the right.
Select the crop planted in the field and its planting date, which is set by default to December 31 (Figure 8). If you don't know the crop and planting date yet, do not guess. Skip these boxes and come back later. You can enter other inputs on this page even if you don't know the crop and planting date. Click Submit to save the information.
The next box on the page is Soil water deficit on planting date. Unless spring rainfall has been unusually low, leave this at the default value of zero, which is the field capacity, for initial soil moisture. This value is ba