Cornell Cropware: Decision Support Tool for Fertilizer and Manure Nutrient Management Planning
2006
Ketterings, Quirine M. | Albrecht, Greg L. | Rasmussen, Caroline N. | Czymmek, Karl J.
Cornell Cropware 2.0 is a decision support tool used in New York State (NYS) to develop farm nutrient management plans in accordance with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) nutrient management standard (NY590), making the output of Cropware 2.0 a key component of Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans (CNMPs) for Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs). Cropware 2.0 is used primarily by government agency employees, extension educators, private sector certified nutrient management planners, and producers. In this article we describe the features of Cropware 2.0 and summarize the results of a comprehensive survey of registered users conducted in 2005. Cropware 2.0 users were asked questions about: (1) their professional affiliation; (2) characteristics of the farms that they developed plans for; (3) level of program support; (4) use and usefulness of current features, and (5) program enhancements for future versions of the software. The survey (80 respondents, 34% response rate) showed that 579 plans were developed with Cropware 2.0 in 2004 with 323 additional plans and 561 updates scheduled for 2005. Seventy-three percent of the plans were developed for small and medium size AFOs and 86% were dairy operations. Features considered most useful were related to field data entry and the creation of output database files and reports. Features less highly valued by private planners than other user groups were the Calendar screen and field detail and custom reports. Suggestions for further development included improvements in data linkages with other software (e.g. mapping software), user interfaces, and output reports. Implementation of these suggestions is being explored.
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