CornSoyWater, a web application for irrigation decision support on corn and soybean

Irrigation is crucial for agricultural production. With the rise in data availability related to agriculture, we developed an irrigation decision support application, CornSoyWater (http://cornsoywater.unl.edu). The application uses real-time weather data and forecasts along with field-specific soil and crop management details to run multiple crop simulations. The outputs include current crop stage, soil water balance, and irrigation recommendations. The application visualizes the user's fields on Google Maps, indicating irrigation needs with color-coded icons. As of now, CornSoyWater operates across ten western U.S. Corn Belt states, and has been validated by field data. It has been highly promoted by Nebraska agricultural educators and has more than a thousand registered users. This crop irrigation scheduling tool enables irrigators to better utilize water resources, increase productivity, and reduce production costs across the western U.S. Corn Belt.