BBE researchers develop new tool to help farmers make crop input decisions

August 12, 2021
A sun is setting behind a field of corn planted in straight rows.

The new tool developed by BBE faculty allows farmers to create a budget balance sheet of any nitrogen reduction plans and see the economic and environmental cost, return and margins, all customized to fields under their management. Previous tools before this did not allow for customized predictions for all fields across the midwest, and were far more costly to run at larger scales. The research team built a series of machine-learning-based metamodels that can almost perfectly mimic a well-tested crop model at much faster speeds.