OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Most textbooks, seed catalogs, Extension Service crop fact sheets, and NRCS technical guides (and their worldwide equivalents) include an adaptation zone description or a map that shows a zone where the species being discussed could be grown (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Generalized tall fescue US adaptation map
(source: ASA monograph).
Maps of this type typically are developed by a graphics artist working with a crop specialist, using general agricultural concepts and broad groupings of precipitation and temperature. The result is a "broad-brush" general idea of where the crop might be successful.
These maps are of minimal value in decision making. They are not adequate for individually tailored decision making, since they do not give specific locations for successful survival or optimal yield and performance or quantitative tolerances of the critical factors (minimum, maximum, and optimal ranges for precipitation, temperature, photoperiod, soil pH and drainage, elevation, slope, aspect, etc.). Agriculturalists and natural resource managers know that successful farming and ranching and natural resource protection require more information than these generalized maps provide.
This universal problem of sub-optimal crop selection is being solved by this project, by creating spatial data layers for climate and soil information and assembling, developing, and effective use of "quantitative ecology" information for plant species. Quantitative ecology information is being used to define the highly productive range and survival limits of crops in specific terms (i.e. minimum, maximum, and optimal ranges for temperature, precipitation, pH, drainage). GIS tools are then used to put the layers together for creating more detailed and accurate maps of species suitability.
This universal problem of sub-optimal crop selection is being solved by this project, by creating spatial data layers for climate and soil information and assembling, developing, and effective use of "quantitative ecology" information for plant species. Quantitative ecology information is being used to define the highly productive range and survival limits of crops in specific terms (i.e. minimum, maximum, and optimal ranges for temperature, precipitation, pH, drainage). GIS tools are then used to put the layers together for creating more detailed and accurate maps of species suitability.