Crop Water Use Application for Irrigation Management.

Water is an important factor that affects crop yields. The University of Missouri Extension developed an online application to help farmers produce higher crop yields by improving irrigation management. The Crop Water Use application can be run on an office computer or smartphone. To register, go to http://cropwater.org.  The program is designed to simplify calculations required for tracking soil moisture in fields.  Crop water use is estimated from weather data from a network of agricultural weather stations across the state. In 2016, farmers used the program on 398 fields. The application saves farmers time by automatically entering weather information for each field and making daily calculations used for irrigation planning. Evapotranspiration (ETo) is calculated using the standardized short crop Penman-Monteith equation. ETo is multiplied by a crop coefficient, which is specific for the crop and growth stage.