The outcomes of agricultural production of a growing season are heavily affected by the average climate conditions of the season. A dry season with less than normal rainfall would require more inputs, e.g., irrigation, and may still lose some yield if high-yield seeds were planted. On the other hand, a wet season with more rainfall would provide opportunities for higher yield. However, such opportunities would be missed if low-yield drought-tolerant seeds were planted. Thus, knowing what climate condition is expected with developed confidence in the coming growing season can help make production decisions that can help increase productivity and profits. Moreover, within the growing season, many operational decisions, such as planting, tillage before planting and also after harvesting, applications of fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides, harvesting, and marketing, can be made more effectively with the short-term weather and climate information.
In this website, we will bring the observed and also projected weather conditions for Nebraska to our agricultural producers. These will include short-term conditions, e.g., rainfall of the past 24 hours, for operational decisions, and long-term conditions, e.g., precipitation of the next growing season. More importantly, we will include tutoring materials and use them to demonstrate how this various data information could be used collectively in making production decisions under specific landscapes. The goal of this exercise is to help producers to develop their own knowledge so that they can find and confidently interpret the available data information of weather and climate in their production landscape and by so doing build their experience and skills of using that information to benefit their production. This will prepare the agricultural community for whatever the climate will be in the future and therefore build food security for the nation.
On the next few pages, we will present a list of weather and climate data and information, explain where they are from and how they are made, and make suggestions on how they can be used to assist in making production decisions. Additionally, we will use our developed examples to illustrate how these data and information can be used in some production decisions under specific landscapes and situations. These examples were developed based on the results obtained from our focus groups and workshops with farming communities primarily in eastern Nebraska and from our personal interactions with producers in our extension educator’s capacity over the years. These examples will be updated from our continuing interactions with the agricultural production communities of the region and understanding of their needs for weather and climate information in agricultural decision-making and will be rotated following the progress of the growing season. We encourage producers to evaluate these examples and practice the demonstrated usages of weather information in their production decisions. It is by practicing and learning from the practices we can build our experience and skills in using the weather information while minimizing their uncertainties.
Any questions, needs for assistance in using these and other weather and climate information in production decision-making, and feedback, ideas, and suggestions for improving our service through this tool (site) are welcome and can be sent to us via our contact given on Our Team page.