WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Midwestern Regional Climate Center, housed at Purdue University, is launching a new tool in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Midwest Climate Hub to provide soil temperature threshold information based on recent historical data 30 years old.
Melissa Widhalm, MRCC deputy director and regional climatologist, said the Soil Temperature Climatology Tool will be vital for the agricultural industry to better identify reference dates for when specific agronomic activities such as planting and nutrient application.
“Every spring and every fall we get a lot of requests from farmers asking us at MRCC when they should expect to put seed in the ground or apply nitrogen, based on past soil temperatures,” Widhalm said. “While this is not a real-time monitor, it points to this piece of historical data that we didn't have access to before so we can make better informed decisions.”
Data for the tool comes from the North American Regional Recapitulation (NARR), a model produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction that produces disaggregated data on temperature, wind, humidity, soil and dozens of other parameters. Widhalm said using data from NARR was necessary because several areas across the Midwest lack meaningful soil temperature measurements. These soil temperature estimates provide an accurate historical perspective.
Laurie Nowatzke, coordinator of the USDA Midwest Climate Hub, expressed excitement about the tool's release: “Soil temperature affects so many on-farm management decisions. We hear all the time from producers and agricultural service providers that they need better access to this key element of climate information. As with many of MRCC's data tools, the Soil Temperature Climatology Tool can help Midwest farmers plan ahead during complex times in the season.”
While the Soil Temperature Climatology Tool was developed with the agricultural community in mind, Widhalm said the data this tool provides will be useful for many other production areas.
“This will be useful for anyone who works with soil, whether it's construction companies who need to dig into the ground or a forester who needs to move trees on frozen ground,” he said. “We want people to understand that this tool can be versatile for many industries.”
The Soil Temperature Climatology Tool is available to the public at The MRCC website.
Author/Media Contact: Jillian Ellison, ellison1@purdue.edu
Source: Melissa Widhalm, mwidhalm@purdue.edu
Rural Communications: 765-494-8415;
Maureen Manier, Department Head, mmanier@purdue.edu
