Open Access Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Open access publications by faculty, postdocs, and graduate students in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences.
Browse
Browsing Open Access Publications by Author "Ackroyd, Victoria J."
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Early-season biomass and weather enable robust cereal rye cover crop biomass predictions(Agricultural & Environmental Letters, 2024-02-13) Huddell, Alexandra; Needelman, Brian; Law, Eugene P.; Ackroyd, Victoria J.; Bagavathiannan, Muthukumar V.; Bradley, Kevin; Davis, Adam S.; Evans, Jeffery A.; Everman, Wesley Jay; Flessner, Michael; Jordan, Nicholas; Schwartz-Lazaro, Lauren M.; Leon, Ramon G.; Lindquist, John; Norsworthy, Jason K.; Shergill, Lovreet S.; VanGessel, Mark; Mirsky, Steven B.Farmers need accurate estimates of winter cover crop biomass to make informed decisions on termination timing or to estimate potential release of nitrogen from cover crop residues to subsequent cash crops. Utilizing data from an extensive experiment across 11 states from 2016 to 2020, this study explores the most reliable predictors for determining cereal rye cover crop biomass at the time of termination. Our findings demonstrate a strong relationship between early-season and late-season cover crop biomass. Employing a random forest model, we predicted late-season cereal rye biomass with a margin of error of approximately 1,000 kg ha−1 based on early-season biomass, growing degree days, cereal rye planting and termination dates, photosynthetically active radiation, precipitation, and site coordinates as predictors. Our results suggest that similar modeling approaches could be combined with remotely sensed early-season biomass estimations to improve the accuracy of predicting winter cover crop biomass at termination for decision support tools. Core Ideas - Cereal rye winter cover crop biomass modeled on data from 35 site-years. - We found a strong relationship between early and late-season biomass. - Random forest model with early-season biomass and weather data performed well. - Similar approach could improve decision support tools for cover crop management. Graphical Abstract available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20121 Effect size estimates from the generalized linear mixed effects model prediction late-season cereal rye cover crop biomass. All covariates were standardized, and significant relationships are indicated by *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001. Abbreviations CGDD cumulative growing degree days GLMM generalized linear mixed effects model PAR photosynthetically active radiation