The Adapt-N Tool Facilitates Both Adaption and Mitigating of Climate Change.

Nitrogen use in corn has a multitude of production and environmental concerns.  It is typically the most expensive crop input, the largest energy input, and nitrous oxide is the largest greenhouse gas concern related to agriculture (44%).  In addition, N losses to the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay have not abated in the past decade despite significant efforts.  Much of these concerns relate to high and inefficient N use in corn production.  Climate change is resulting in higher growing season precipitation in the humid regions of the USA, especially through more extreme rainfall in the spring and summer.  High precipitation variability increases the uncertainty in predicting N fertilizer needs for corn production as high short-term N losses may occur through leaching and denitrification from spring and summer rainfall.  Conversely, few losses occur in dryer growing seasons.  This uncertainty results in the general practice of using “insurance fertilizer” applications which results in over-fertilization during normal and dry years. Such excessive N use is associated with exponential increases in nitrous oxide losses and nitrate leaching.   Until recently, the constraint was the limited ability to estimate N fertilizer needs for corn based on field-specific conditions, as N recommendations were very generalized (e.g., MRTN and mass-balance approaches).  The Adapt-N tool uses high-resolution weather data as well as localized conditions (soil variability, soil management practices, organic matter applications, crop management, etc.) to provide more precise N fertilizer recommendations, thereby both adapting and mitigating climate change concerns.  The tool can also be used for evaluation of environmental impacts of alternative N management scenarios for a specific field.  Adapt-N uses a cloud-computing model with access through the web using computers or mobile devices.