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CropWatch web site has lots of information about Panhandle’s crops
By David Ostdiek
Communications Specialist
Panhandle Research and Extension Center
- Which variety is likely to yield best in specific conditions?
- How much fertilizer is needed for optimum yield?
- With limitations on irrigation water, how much water should be applied to a crop, and when?
- How to recognize insects, weeds and disease, and decide when to treat them?
- What can be done to minimize harvest losses?
Answers are a click or two away on the University of Nebraska’s expanded and reorganized CropWatch web site, which includes sites for sugarbeets, dry edible beans, wheat, potatoes, and other crops.
Pointing a web browser to cropwatch.unl.edu will bring up the CropWatch home page. A navigation bar on the left side of the page is organized by crop. Each crop has its own home page organized by topic, including crop variety, soil management, marketing, and weed, insect, irrigation and disease management.
Individual CropWatch web sites:
Each crop web site links to a variety of resources for decision-making, such as articles, photos, graphs, Extension publications, research reports, or links to interactive decision-making tools.
Most or all of the information and resources at the dry edible bean, sugarbeet, wheat and sites comes from UNL researchers and educators who work in the Panhandle. The pages are updated and maintained entirely or in part by Panhandle UNL personnel, making them responsive to the needs of western Nebraska.
The information on the CropWatch sites is supported by research. In the case of dry beans, sugarbeets, wheat, or potatoes, much or all of the research was performed in the Panhandle.
UNL has always has a number of resources on the web for ag producers. But before the CropWatch reorganization, people searching for such information had to gather it from various sites. For example, a farmer might have to look on one web site for soil fertility information. A different site, not linked directly to the first, had photos to help identify crop diseases. Those other sites still exist. But now, for the first time, all of UNL’s on-line resources about any one crop can be easily located from a single page.
The Potato Education Guide web site, a comprehensive guide to potato production, has existed for years. But it, too, has been brought under the CropWatch umbrella, reorganized according to the topics listed above, and expanded. It is easily the largest of the individual crop sites.
Content leader for the potato web site is Dr. Alexander Pavlista, crop physiologist and potato specialist at the Panhandle Center. Dr. Drew Lyon, dryland cropping systems specialist, is the content leader for the wheat web site. Dr. Bob Harveson, plant pathologist, is content leader for the sugarbeet web site. Dr. Carlos Urrea, dry bean breeding specialist, is content leader for the dry bean site.
The content leaders oversee site development and upkeep. Numerous UNL specialists and educators in the Panhandle and elsewhere also provide much of the content.
Some of the sites were completed with assistance from commodity groups. Content for the sugarbeet web site was developed with the help of a grant from the Nebraska Sugar Beet Growers Association.
Still in the works are CropWatch sites for alternative crops, such as proso millet, sunflowers, and others.
The new CropWatch web site was unveiled this fall at Husker Harvest days, a huge trade show near Grand Island.
CropWatch editor Lisa Jasa said the new site expanded UNL's CropWatch newsletter to provide more in-depth crop production information as well as online tools to assist with pest identification and treatment, soil nutrition questions, crop budgets and farm management decisions.
Information is organized into two key areas: the CropWatch newsletter, which contains ag and rural news stories, a calendar of ag events and programs, and extension resources; and crop-specific production and pest management information.
The CropWatch site is a central resource for crop producers looking for a vast array of information, said Gary Zoubek, extension educator in York. The new site is a "one-stop shop" for everything crops related, he said.
"Anyone interested in crop production should find the information they're looking for on CropWatch," said Zoubek, who has been working since January on the site with extension educator Jennifer Reese in Clay Center and other extension personnel.
