1. Crop Modeling, The 2012 “Flash Drought” & Irrigation Demand Cameron Handyside University of Alabama in Huntsville Earth Systems Science Center September, 2013

2. Decline in Alabama commodity crops was characteristic of Southeast as a whole Background

3. Irrigated Rainfed Midwest Yields Yield Benefit of Irrigation

4. Profit while paying for irrigation infrastructure How do we run these scenarios?

5. Soil ConditionsWeather data Model Simulation Crop Management Genetics Growth Development Yield Net Income Environmental Impact Natural Resource Use Crop Model

6. DSSAT “Decision Support System for Agro-Technology” Computer simulation model of the soil-plant- atmosphere system Widely accepted crop model Used to model “What-if” scenarios incorporating multiple factors (weather, soil, cultivar, irrigation…) Inputs: Min/Max Temperature Precipitation Insolation (sunshine) Soil Outputs: Yield Drought Stress Irrigation Demand Fertilizer Demand Residual Fertilizer

7. DSSAT to GriDSSAT Workflow Run DSSAT ~36,000 times a day! “X File”: Planting Dates County Soil Types Cultivar Spatial Weather: Insolation Temperature Precipitation Model Output Yield Drought Stress Irrigation Demand Residual Fertilizer

8. GriDSSAT Website Updated Daily http://gridssat.nsstc.uah.edu/

9. Week of May 29 th, 2012 Comparison of the U.S. Drought Monitor to the GriDSSAT Crop Stress Index and 7-Day Cumulative Precipitation

10. Week of June 5th, 2012

11. Week of June 12 th, 2012

12. Week of June 19 th, 2012

13. Week of June 26 th, 2012

14. Week of July 3 rd, 2012

15. Week of July 10 th, 2012

16. Analysis w/ Crop-Scape Masking

18. Week of August 31st, 2012

19. 2012 Yields with Irrigation 222 bu/ac 183bu/ac 173 bu/ac 119 bu/ac 45 bu/ac

20. Irrigation Demand is Dynamic GriDSSAT Crop Model USDA NASS CropScape Data Watershed Irrigation Withdrawals

21. Real-time Radar Derived Precipitation NASA land surface temperatures Satellite derived insolation Real-time Gridded Crop Model Real-time WaSSI Model Provide both Crop Stress & Water Stress to Stakeholders

22. THANK YOU! QUESTIONS?