Adaptive nutrient management is a progressive management strategy that relies on a whole farm approach and producer participation in order to achieve maximum nutrient use efficiency. This approach has four primary components (i) development of a comprehensive nutrient management plan, (ii) implementation of the plan, (iii) evaluation of the plan, and (iv) modification of the plan to adjust for successes and failures. Inherent to the potential success of adaptive management is the flexibility needed to respond to real-time data and make immediate adjustments. Modification of the plan may have to occur on multiple time scales. For example, a producer would have months to respond to a corn stalk nitrate test, days or weeks with the pre-sidedress soil nitrate test, or seconds with optical sensors; however, a static plan is incompatible with the dynamic nature of the environmental factors that influence crop production.  Implications of the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load to adaptive approaches, such as sensor-based variable rate nitrogen, will be discussed.