Product Overview

CropForecaster is a new service consisting of a suite of knowledge products that takes advantage of proven crop development and growth models and timely satellite imagery. The suite is designed to provide a daily accounting of crop development and growth from key seasonal perspectives, such as planting, condition, and harvest. The individual products provide map and table summaries at three aggregated spatial scales and selectable time intervals, which allow clients to perform seasonal tracking and monitoring.

The client has the ability to select which product and at what scale is best suited for specific decision making. Clients utilizing best practice decision making must understand the context and function of each CropForecaster product in its role to provide an unfolding story of the crop development and growth during its growing season. Accordingly, the CropForecaster suite of web-based tool descriptions are organized to introduce each product to maximize its value relative to clients decision needs.

In general, the CropForecaster service is patterned after the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) crop status reports during the growing season. This mimicry was deliberate because the NASS reports represent the government "truth" as to the state of crop production in the United States (US) and it provides clients with a familiar framework. While the objective of the CropForecaster service is to provide information within the bounds of NASS estimates, the products themselves represent a far more comprehensive day-to-day picture of a crop season.

An important distinction between CropForecaster products and similar offerings from other competitors is in the modeling approach. The CropForecaster service employs "deterministic" as opposed to the more widely used "statistical" models. Deterministic models utilize mathematical relationships to describe the properties and processes of crop development and growth. Statistical models utilize mathematical equations or indices to correlate crop behavior with historical data. Statistical models are only as good as the data used for the basis of their correlations. Changes in weather or climate not included in historical databases used to make correlations will result in significant uncertainties when computing crop development and growth during a growing season.

The deterministic nature of CropForecaster's modeling approach makes for an ideal marriage with satellite imagery. Model simulations provide output which matches satellite images, thus allowing two independent, but similar data sets to both support and reconcile each other. Furthermore, their affinity for having the same geospatial perspective provides clients a reliable, seamless stream of information no matter the time or place.

Also, the CropForecaster service is "user-friendly." Its web-based design allows the client to access self-explanatory products from any location with broadband web access. The simplicity of the interface allows for quick access to product views and accompanying reports. With two to three clicks of a mouse, clients can track a crop across the US and at a preferred scale (county, crop reporting district, or state) during the growing season. The interface is flexible in its design to allow for custom tools or reports so that clients can access the most information in the minimum amount of time.

In the following sections, each Product is introduced. Product descriptions are deliberately kept functional so as to emphasize their operational use. We leave it up to each client to either interpret the products for their decision needs or to incorporate them into their analysis routines. Please contact us for more in-depth technical information of the CropForecaster products.

Available Products