Free rainfall data

Submit a nomination for the 2022 Rice Consultant of the Year Award.

Recognize an outstanding consultant for his or her dedication, leadership and innovation in the Mid-South rice industry.

For more information, go to ricefarming.com/rcoy or go toPage 15in this issue of Rice Farming.

Submit nominations by July15, 2022.

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Abbreviated Rules. No Purchase Necessary. Contest ends on 7/15/22 at 11:59:59 PM (CT). To enter, go to http://www.ricefarming.com/rcoy. Nominators must be legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and District of Columbia who are 18 years of age or older at the time of entry and possess knowledge and/or experience in the rice farming industry. Entrants must be legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and District of Columbia who are 18 years of age or older at the time of entry and serve as a rice consultant in the rice farming industry.Void where prohibited. Sponsor: Corteva Agriscience, 9330 Zionsville Road, Indianapolis,IN 46268.

Rainfall data is essential information for farmers to help manage their fields. However, one of the main challenges is to have good coverage in areas where there are only a few weather stations close by. In addition to that, the cost for farmers to acquire weather stations is still significant. Therefore, is there any other way to acquire public weather data in areas with few weather stations?

Currently, remote sensing allows you to obtain data from different platform levels, such as terrestrial, aerial or orbital. Satellite images are used to supervise crop development, area delimitation and climate assessment. Thus, it is possible through remote sensing to measure rainfall data.

Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) is a near-global precipitation dataset. It is an efficient alternative for farm management support, especially where weather stations are scarce. Next, we will explain how to download the CHIRPS rainfall data, using a delimited (marked) area or boundary.

Three easy steps

The first step is to know the exact location of your field of interest. You can build a delimited area or boundary in any GIS software, such as Qgis or Arcgis. (Figure 1) This step is essential to create a polygon of the field of interest in a shapefile format and then compress or zip the file necessary in the second phase.

After creating the zipped file, create a Google Earth Engine account (https:// earthengine.google.com). A sharing link, which will be used in the third step, will be generated on this site.

With the link generated in the previous step, you will open a new web page called Climate Engine (https://climateengine. com). On this site, you will see the area of interest delimited in the first phase. According to the selected input mechanisms, we will have the precipitation graph plotted for visualization and the availability to download the raw data in CSV format.

If you have problems loading a boundary, the other option is to check the box “Region Point.” Then move the point to a certain location in the climate engine map. But this is data for just a specific location, not an area of interest, such as a basin/farm.

It is necessary to create an account to use the site in both the second and third phases. You will need your existing Gmail account to log in and explain the reasons for using the sites.

With CHIRPS data, you can have a historical series of the rainfall pattern in a region or production field to help effectively manage mechanized operations. It can be used to select tractor power and number of farm machinery needed to cover dry days to plant, spray and harvest. Furthermore, farmers will have more support in choosing the ideal planting window to match all operations with rainfall events.

LSU AgCenter’s Armando Lopes de Brito Filho, Franciele Morlin Carneiro and Luciano Shiratsuchi, contributed this article previously published in LA Crops Newsletter March 22.

NOMINATION FORM

Nominate an outstanding consultant for the Rice Consultant of the Year Award.

Sponsored by Corteva Agriscience and Rice Farming magazine, the annual award recognizes the dedication, leadership and innovation of this crucial segment of the Mid-South rice industry. “Crop consultants are an indispensable component of the rice farming industry. The agronomic guidance and support they provide rice producers is invaluable,” says Clark Smith, product manager for rice herbicides, Corteva Agriscience. “Corteva Agriscience remains committed to the Rice Consultant of the Year Award. We are honored to recognize the consultants who positively impact their local communities and help ensure the success of the rice industry for many years to come,” he says. The RCOY Award recipient will:  Be featured in a four-page salute in the February 2023 Rice Farming magazine and honored at a special recognition event Feb. 23, 2023.  Receive a personalized Rice Consultant of the Year jacket. The award recipient and nominator each will receive one night’s hotel stay and round-trip travel to the event.

SUBMIT SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

Please use a separate page for biographical/professional information. Additional recommendation letters from rice farmers, consultants and industry members in support of the nominee are encouraged.

Submit all materials via:

Email: csmith@onegrower.com Mail: Carroll Smith 7201 Eastern Ave. Germantown, TN 38138 Online: ricefarming.com/rcoy

Submit nominations by July 15, 2022.

Consultant’s Name: Company Name: Mailing Address: City: State: ZIP: Phone: Email:

Please describe the dedication, leadership and innovation that makes this person

a good candidate for the 2022 Rice Consultant of the Year Award. (Be as specific as possible, and use a separate sheet, if needed.)

Your Name: Address: City: State: ZIP: Phone: Email:

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