Apr 7, 2021
WASHINGTON Farmers, researchers, meteorologists and others now have access to high-resolution NASA data on soil moisture, thanks to a new tool developed by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) in collaboration with NASA and George Mason University.
The tool, Crop Condition and Soil Moisture Analytics (Crop-CASMA), provides access to high-resolution data from NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument in a user-friendly format. Soil moisture data are critical for professionals in the agriculture and natural resource sectors who use soil moisture in tandem with other data to plan crop planting, forecast yields, monitor droughts or floods, and improve weather forecasts. Crop-CASMA is available for free online at cloud.csiss.gmu.edu/Crop-CASMA/.
Source: US National Agricultural Statistics Service
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2021 – Planting has begun for barley, corn, cotton, oats, rice, sorghum, spring wheat, and sugarbeets, according to the first Crop Progress report issued for the 2021 planting season by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). By this time last year, 2% of the corn crop had been planted, 2% has been planted so far in 2021. Six percent of the cotton crop has been planted, 1 percentage point behind the same time last year. Fourteen percent of the sorghum crop has been planted, 1 percentage point behind a year ago. Barley, oats, rice, spring wheat and sugarbeet plantings are similar to 2020 progress.
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NASA Data Power New USDA Soil Moisture Portal
People looking to plant crops now have a new planning tool in their toolbox thanks to soil moisture data collected by NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
By Teresa White, Jane Lee, and Jessica Merzdorf,
USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service / NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
In Brief:
This tool provides information that will help people track droughts or floods, make plans for when to plant crops, and forecast agricultural yields.
Rajat Bindlish, a research associate in Earth science remote sensing at NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the tool provides more thorough spatial coverage and consistency than other soil moisture measurement methods.
“Soil moisture is a very important piece of information for agricultural yield and productivity,” said Bindlish. “This will provide a means of using NASA remote sensing data to guide predictions of moisture conditions and water availability. Information on the field conditions is important for agricultural operations.”
Some of Crop-CASMA’s primary users will be NASS researchers and statisticians who release weekly
Crop Progress Reports that currently classify states into moisture categories (very short, short, adequate, surplus) to aid farmers and farm managers. The reports also track crops’ health and growing progress.