From Jeff Melkonian jjm11@cornell.edu

Hi Adapt-N Users,

Adapt-N will be down for a period of time over the weekend so that we can install several new updates to Adapt-N. Adapt-N should be operational by Monday, May 14 if not sooner.

The new updates are:

- ‘Manure/Rotations’ page: Manure entries – you will be able to enter manure applications as tons/acre and lbs N/ton, as well as the current method (gals/acre and lbs N/1000 gal). When you select a manure application, you will be asked to select the units you will be using (‘Unit’/ ‘Select Unit’). You will then get the appropriate units for the additional selections.

- ‘Manure/Rotations’ page: ‘Previous Soybean Crop’ has now been changed to ‘Previous Crop’. The pull-down list for ‘Previous Crop’ now includes ‘grain corn’, ‘silage corn’, ‘sweet corn’, ‘soybean’ and ‘sod’. (Note that the ‘sod’ entry is for NE region users who had a sod crop the previous year.) These inputs are used in the stover mineralization, soil temperature and soil moisture components of the model. The impact of them on the Adapt-N output will depend on the tillage selection.

- ‘Manure/Rotations’ page: There is no longer an explicit ‘soybean N credit’ for a previous soybean crop. At this time, our work has shown that nitrogen immobilization from a previous year’s corn crop is approximately equivalent to the average ‘soybean N credit’ of 30 lbs/acre that we have been using. Therefore, for the 2012 growing season, we are assuming that the ‘soybean N credit’ is actually a penalty (immobilization of N) associated with growing corn after corn. The penalty will show up as reduced N mineralization from soil organic N for corn-corn compared to corn-soybean. The nature of the ‘soybean N credit’ is still not well established, however, and we will continue to update this part of the model based on research, if necessary.

Our next update will be in the next two weeks. We will be expanding both the climate and soils coverage of Adapt-N. The expanded climate coverage will include the entire Eastern US. The expanded soils coverage in 2012 will be more limited, and will include Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois, in addition to our current locations (Iowa and the Northeast US), with additional expansion planned for 2013.

Please let us know if you have any questions / comments, or if you encounter problems with the updated Adapt-N.