Wrap up and Validation of the Yield Forecast Project for 2015

During the 2015 growing season, a group of scientists from the Department of Agronomy ran a pilot project with the objective of forecasting end-of-season yields and in-season water and nitrogen dynamics (crop demand and soil supply). In-season updates were put in past ICM News articles (June 17th, July 31st, and August 14th). Briefly, this project combined the use of a cropping systems model (APSIM), a climate model (WRF), and high-resolution, in-season measurements to create the forecasts. The project focused on eight cropping systems in 2015: two sites (Ames and Sutherland), two crops (corn and soybean), and two planting dates of each crop. More details can be found in a previous ICM News article with plot management details from June 17, 2015. In this article we’ll present validation results of our last forecast on September 12.