UCANR CropManage Program
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
UC Ag and Natural Resources is putting years of research into practice with a technology of their own to help farmers irrigate and fertilize more efficiently. Michael Cahn is an Irrigation and Water Resources Adviser for UC Cooperative Extension based in Salinas. He explains this CropManage program.
Cahn… “It really began with a request from a grower. We were trying to help the farmers on the central coast, use nitrogen fertilizer more efficiently to comply with water quality regulations. We had a tool available, which is the soil nitrate quick test where we can test the soil very quickly to find out what is the level of mineral nitrogen that might be in the soil. And so a grower realizing he has a lot of different vegetable plantings asked if there was some sort of spreadsheet program that could assist him and also give him sort of an estimate of how much fertilizer you should apply. We slowly developed an online tool that can both help growers with water management and nutrient management.”
The tool is available to all growers at cropmanage.ucanr.edu.