Location: Rangeland Resources & Systems Research
Project Number: 3012-21500-001-054-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2026
End Date: Jul 31, 2028
Objective:
1. Expand geographical capacity of a beta-version individual ranch-level decision-support web tool in semi-arid rangelands for forage production and quality, and greenness to the landscape level (e.g., western Great Plains).
2. Incorporate feedback from individual ranchers in the western Great Plains for enhancing the facilitation of adaptively grazing rangelands and other grasslands/crop residues/CRP fields to more effectively match animal demand with forage conditions for increased livestock production.
Approach:
This project is part of a larger effort involving the common experiment in the USDA Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network at the Central Plains Experimental Range (CPER) in shortgrass steppe, a semi-arid rangeland in the Western Great Plains, and also leverages a large (>$15M) grant through the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) where 59 ranchers are collaborating with scientists on forage production and quality with on-ground data and remote sensing. Through an interdisciplinary teamwork approach involving remote sensing personnel, rangeland scientists, rangeland ecologists, animal scientists, and technical support, this project will focus on extending the geographical capacity of a beta-version individual ranch-level decision-support web tool in semi-arid rangelands for forage production and quality, and greenness (https://cperviewer.com/hls_gcloud_app) to the landscape scale, i.e., across the western Great Plains. We will build on work recently completed at the CPER site in the LTAR network. Specifically, this work will incorporate feedback from individual ranchers in the western Great Plains for enhancing the facilitation of adaptively grazing rangelands and other grasslands/crop residues/Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) fields to more effectively match animal demand with forage conditions for increased livestock production.