Range forage production can vary widely from year to year. What if you could get a production prediction 3 months ahead of the growing season and make management decisions from it? Tip's guest today, Matt Reeves (USFS) is part of a group of researchers who have developed the Rangeland Production Monitoring Service, a backward-looking prediction tool that is not meteorological forecasting, but a machine-learning approach to a seasonal outlook based on historical climate data. This episode includes an interview with Matt followed by Matt's talk at the Society for Range Management conference a couple weeks ago.

The slides referred to in Matt’s talk are available at the show notes link: https://www.dropbox.com/home/Art%20of%20Range%20show%20notes

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TRANSCRIPT

The full transcript of this episode is available at: https://bit.ly/2C9kT5Z

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Rangeland Production Monitoring Service (RPMS): https://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/projects/development-rangeland-production-monitoring-service-could-improve-rangeland-management

Grasscast

GRASSCAST: http://grasscast.agsci.colostate.edu

Although Grass-Cast doesn’t currently extend into the Pacific Northwest, it might inspire ideas for adapting it to that region.

The Drought Monitor, along with NDMC’s “Managing Drought Risk on the Ranch” handbook: https://drought.unl.edu/ranchplan/Overview.aspx.

USDA’s revamped farmers.gov website, where ranchers can now more easily find information about weather-related safety-nets such as the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/FactSheets/2018/livestock_forage_disaster_program-july2018.pdf; Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/FactSheets/2018/livestock_indemnity_program_fact_sheet-may_2018.pdf; and Pasture, Rangeland and Forage (PRF) insurance product https://www.rma.usda.gov/en/Fact-Sheets/National-Fact-Sheets/Pasture-Rangeland-Forage-Pilot-Insurance-Program. These programs were renewed in the 2018 Farm Bill (here’s a great Farm Bill overview by one of my (Reeves’) trusted AgEcon colleagues at OK State) https://news.okstate.edu/articles/agricultural-sciences-natural-resources/2018/stotts_2018-farm-bill-passage.html.

Three other climate/ag tools developed by our friends at the Northwest and Southwest Climate Hubs:

1. Seedlot Selection Tool for forest landowners throughout the northwest and beyond: https://seedlotselectiontool.org/sst/

2. Orchard Crop Suitability Mapping Tool for the northwest: https://climate.northwestknowledge.net/NWTOOLBOX/cropSuitability.php

3. AgRisk Viewer (from the SW Hub) -- an online tool for viewing historical causes of insured crop loss at the county level throughout the US: https://swclimatehub.info/rma/rma-data-viewer.html