U2U: Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers.

Corn and soybean production contributes over $100 billion annually to the U.S. economy, most of which comes from the intensely cultivated Corn Belt of the Midwest.  Successful crop production is highly dependent on favorable temperatures and appropriate precipitation patters, making this industry vulnerable to increasingly variable climate patterns.  The U2U project is focused on improving the resilience and profitability of farms in the Corn Belt through the development and delivery of enhanced decision support tools and training resources. The goal is to help producers make better long-term plans on what, when and where to plant and also how to manage crops for maximum yields and minimum environmental damage.  

During the five-year project period, our diverse team of climatologists, crop modelers, agronomists, economists, and social scientists will address five key objectives.  First we will examine the contributions of anomalous weather to crop productivity and implications for future farm management options (objective 1) and conduct complementary research to understand how producers and advisors are likely to use this information (objective 2). Based on these findings, decision support tools (DSTs) and training materials will be developed to effectively deliver climate information to stakeholders (objective 3).  Next, DSTs will be piloted in a four-state region (Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Michigan) to help improve tools and evaluate effectiveness (objective 4).  After several iterations with stakeholders to ensure the usability and utility of the tools, the program will be extended to all twelve states in the region (objective 5).  NSF-funded and Purdue University-developed HUBzero™ technology serves as the supporting middle-ware that integrates all project activities, and on-going interaction with key stakeholder groups is at the core of this project.