Location: Soil, Water & Air Resources Research
2024 Annual Report
Objectives
Objective 1. Enable climate-smart decision-making by developing science-based, region-specific information, tools and technologies for agricultural and natural resource managers, and provide assistance where possible to enhance adoption and implementation of the same. The work will be conducted as the Midwest USDA Climate Change Hub and will be coordinated with NRCS, FS, and other USDA and non-USDA organizations in accordance with guidance found in the USDA Climate Change Hubs Charter, and Terms of Reference.
Objective 2. Expand and enhance each Hub’s research and communication capacity and ensure integration of ARS research outcomes from across the region into Hub outreach assets.
Objective 3: Provide capacity to expand and enhance the hub’s climate-science, social-science, and economic-science resources and tools via enhanced collaboration with ARS research teams and other research partners to ensure impactful integration of ARS research outcomes from across the region into Hub outreach assets.
Approach
To fulfill the objectives of supporting climate-smart agriculture and agricultural adaptation to a changing climate, the Midwest Climate Hub (MCH) will work in three main areas:
1) Development and delivery of current condition/monitoring products and services to guide improved management and agricultural decision-making under climate change and climate extremes.
2) Development of new products and information i.e., a system-of-systems to describe and understand the changing climate and its impacts on agriculture.
3) Creating and sharing new adaptation/mitigation strategies for climate-smart agriculture and agricultural intensification under climate change in various agricultural systems, including row crop, livestock, and specialty crop systems.
The MCH will work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and other federal and state partners to monitor and share information about potential climate risk issues across the range of agricultural production systems in the Midwest. These issues will include extreme issues such as drought, extreme rains, freezes and others to mitigate potential damages. The information will be shared via webinars, email lists, various social media, websites, and traditional media as necessary. We will also work with USDA-internal partners to create and share information appropriate to internal partners.
The MCH will work with federal and state partners to create and develop new climate monitoring products for tracking changes in climate and agricultural issues and developing new climate summary information for different geographical regions and various specific agricultural issues. The new data climatologies could include information such as evapotranspiration and soil temperature/moisture climatologies to provide context and changes over time. The goal of publications will be to inform land managers about climate change issues in agriculture and potential impacts to their production systems.
The MCH will work with partners to create and share additional information on new strategies for climate-smart farming to help producers to adapt and mitigate issues related to climate changes. The work will include reviewing current management systems and developing work with changing or new management systems to adapt to changing conditions or mitigate greenhouse gas issues. Partners would include current ARS projects, other partners in USDA, land grants/extension, and others to develop alternatives and share possible management/cropping changes coupled with USDA policies.
The MCH will help facilitate collaboration and communication among ARS projects, the Climate Hubs and among the Fellows through the ARS Liaison. The Liaison will expand connections on research and use of appropriate information from ARS project research to support Climate Smart Agriculture practice development and use of information. Various projects will be tracked to determine impacts including usage of information, changes in practices and possible implementation on landscapes across the region.
Progress Report
Climate Outreach: As part of regular outreach with stakeholders, we maintained communication with stakeholders and collaborated with partners on developing and sharing information about current issues impacting various parts of agriculture. We further presented to over 3,000 people at in-person talks or webinars throughout FY24. We also continued to co-lead a monthly webinar series with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other regional climate services partners that discusses current and projected seasonal information. We also met monthly with university outreach (extension) partners to discuss current ag-climate issues and share information about potential impacts.
NRCS Collaboration: As part of Objective 1, we cooperated with USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) staff on training 80 NRCS staff in Wisconsin as part of an advanced climate training for state NRCS staff. We also met quarterly with NRCS state climate points of contact to discuss current ag-climate issues and to plan additional training and development of products to support NRCS work for other states in the Midwest.
Climate Smart Agriculture: As part of Objective 1 and 2, we developed capability in Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) in conjunction with two projects, a USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture-funded project led by Purdue University and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)-supported work. The combined efforts summarized various agricultural practices to describe their capabilities based on existing ARS and other partner research and possible modeling. We, along with partners, tested a technique to collect information about practices from expert teams to guide summary development. This summary technique and full practice summary development will be implemented in the next year. We have also developed an outline for an online portal for sharing practices.
Climate-Extension Collaboration: Two USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture grants were awarded to improve collaborations among ARS scientists and regional extension partners on climate-related training and programming. In the last year, we have increased the collaboration with Extension system leadership to define a framework for Extension-ARS efforts. The efforts culminated in a planning session among regional Extension leadership, ARS, and grant project partners to develop a path for future collaboration to maximize effectiveness of stakeholder engagement on climate and agriculture issues. Outcomes from the session were a stronger framework for development and sharing of climate change information and programming efforts across the North Central United States.
Impact Evaluation and Climate Services Effectiveness: As part of funding from the USDA Office of the Chief Economist to develop a framework and plan for tracking impacts and helping evaluate the effectiveness of Climate Hub services, we have developed a draft plan to begin choosing targeted Climate Hub products and services that are well suited for evaluation and an overall method for better assessment of impacts. This plan has also been shared with other hubs for wider usage across the USDA Climate Hub network. We also partnered with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration partners and National Drought Mitigation partners on publishing a paper evaluating and demonstrating the effectiveness and impact of one specific service, a monthly webinar series that has been ongoing for over 10 years.
Climate Adaptation Management Fellows: As part of a USDA-National Institute for Food and Agriculture-funded project, we partnered and led the Midwest row crop session for the Climate Adaptation Management Fellows (CAMF) project through the University of Maine. As part of Objective 2, we recruited attendees and led eight sessions on various climate aspects and agriculture. We specifically led three of the sessions and coordinated all sessions. The CAMF sessions educated 16 producers and advisers about climate and agriculture issues and introduced them to information and program access through USDA. Sessions were recorded for additional use. Outcomes were a more educated agricultural work force and developing a cohort that will produce some outreach capability for climate and agriculture.
Tribal Outreach and Underserved Populations: We have developed relationships with the two Historically Black Universities in the Midwest region, Central State University in Ohio, and Lincoln University in Missouri along with university partners from Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We have also supported the University of Minnesota to create a Tribal liaison outreach position working across the Midwest. Through these and other partnerships with the National Drought Mitigation Center, we have continued to develop outreach and partnership capabilities for various audiences not reached by USDA programs and to develop partnerships for sharing of climate information and climate programming needs.
Accomplishments
1. Fifth National Climate Assessment. Climate change impacts continue to widely affect the United States. To describe the problems and summarize research concerning climate change impacts on the United States, the U.S. Congress mandates a National Climate Assessment (NCA) every 4 to 5 years. The report addresses the wide range of climate issues impacting the nation by region and sector. An ARS scientist in Ames, Iowa, co-authored the Midwest Chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA). The NCA Chapter describes historical and projected climate change and its ongoing and expected impacts on agriculture and other sectors in the region and summarizes the state of science about climate interactions with various issues in the Midwest. It is commonly used by decision-makers, scientists, and others to help inform the general public about climate change issues and guide possible changes to deal with climate change issues.
2. Soil temperature climatology for the Midwest. Certain soil temperatures, commonly 50 degrees F (10 degrees C), are critical to various aspects of agricultural production and critical to crop germination or nutrient application. Summary dates for reaching these temperatures (spring or fall), may be reported locally or at state levels, however regional maps of these critical dates did not exist. To resolve this, ARS scientists in Ames, Iowa, and the Midwestern Regional Climate Center at Purdue University developed a data visualization tool to display fall and spring average soil temperature dates at the sub-county level across the Midwest. This partnership produced a first-of-its-kind tool for the Midwest visualizing, exploring, and analyzing soil temperature data for agricultural planning and decision-making using a unique regional data set. The tool displays the average day of the year that soils warm above 50 degrees F in the spring and cools below 50 degrees F in the fall. The tool provides decision support for Extension, agricultural advisors, and farmers during critical times in the agricultural season because soil temperatures are key for understanding optimal planting times and fertilizer application windows.
3. State climate assessments to inform agriculture decision making. Improved understanding of climate change impacts to help guide stakeholders' decision-making is a major goal of the USDA Climate Hubs nationally. Knowledge of climate change is generally understood; however, details about the actual regional impacts on agriculture are less well known. ARS scientists in Ames, Iowa, cooperated with staff from the Great Lakes Regional Integrated Science Assessment (GLISA), Northern Forests Climate Hub, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Ohio State University in developing more detailed climate change and agriculture assessments for states. This partnership developed three state agricultural climate change assessment for the eight-state MCH region. The Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota assessments have been completed and published on the Climate Hub web site. These publications translated the best current science to be useful for local stakeholders. The publications provided stakeholders in each state with more detailed information about specific climate changes impacting agriculture in that state, how future climate changes are likely to impact that agriculture, and a summary of known management changes that can be used to address current and future issues. They also link to additional local resources for each state.
4. Specialty crop climate assessment. The regularly produced National Climate Assessment provides an authoritative assessment of the impacts of climate change nationally and regionally. However, usually agricultural interests need more localized specific information for their region or crop, such as how freeze dates are changing in a specific region or more detailed issues such as how increasingly wet/unfrozen soils are affecting tree management. ARS scientists in Ames, Iowa in collaboration with Michigan State University Extension, co-developed the first of its kind specialty crop assessment for Christmas trees. The product is similar to the regional state ag-climate assessments in discussing recent and projected climate information but is more so focused on the impacts to Christmas tree production throughout the Midwest, including issues such as changing winter temperatures, changing precipitation and changing pest pressures. The document summarizes current climate change issues for tree production and discusses possible management adaptations that producers can use to deal with current problems and consider future production adaptation. This document responds to grower-noted problems, summarizes causes to climate issues, and provides some solutions for tree producers.
5. Tracking chilling hours for Midwestern specialty crops. Specialty crop producers in the Midwest have fewer decision tools specific to their crop or climate issue such as understanding important planting periods, impacts of drought during the growing season or in this case tracking winter chill accumulation units for fruit trees. To provide additional information for tree fruit producers about chill accumulation, ARS scientists in Ames, Iowa, and the Midwestern Regional Climate Center at Purdue University developed a data visualization tool to display the chilling hours accumulation from weather stations nationwide. The tool can also be used to illustrate climate change issues showing the changes in chill hour accumulation over series of years. The tool provides decision support for Extension, agricultural advisors, and farmers on a critical climate index that impacts fruit tree producers across the Midwest, where previously there was no regional tool for tracking chill.