Example Report: Est. Rainfall Needed for Runoff | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The table above will be included in your daily report. The estimated rainfall needed for runoff is a mandatory component of each subscriber's report. Horizon Point was initially funded by the Environmental Protection Agency as a pilot project to assist with decisions regarding land application of nutrients. The hope is that land managers will not apply nutrients prior to a rain event if they have good information that the nutrients would runoff. Such decisions would save the farmer money because nutrients applied would be available to the crops and protect water quality because agricultural inputs would not enter rivers and lakes. The current report contains rows for several types of ground cover. Eventually, the manager of the Horizon Point account will be able to choose only the types of ground cover that they want to get the estimates for only those types of ground cover. The rainfall needed for runoff estimate is obtained by using hydrologic models of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. The model uses the rainfall for the last 4 days, the soil hydrologic group and the soil cover to estimate how much rain would have to fall before runoff from the field begins. This number is merely an estimate that can not take into account all factors. For example: hard, driving rains will runoff with less precipitation than estimated; or soil that is saturated and experiencing very little evapotransporation will have runoff before the amount predicted.
Whenever a field was entered into Horizon Point, a soil hydrologic group was specified by the user or selected by administrators in the Commercial Agriculture Horizon Point Program. The estimated rainfall needed for runoff is dependent upon this selection. Occasionally fields will have more than one soil hydrologic group. In such instances, the soil hydrologic group where nutrients are most likely to be applied (where crops are planted or near streams) should be chosen.
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