The Iowa Nutrient Research & Education Council (INREC), Iowa State University (ISU)’s Department of Agronomy along with support from Google.org held a three-day design sprint this week in Clive to work on new tool that will help farmers with nitrogen fertilizer rate decisions.
Iowa State University professor of agronomy Mike Castellano says that during the design sprint, it was important to have everyone involved in the project on-hand to work together.
Castellano says that Iowa farmers were the priority when brainstorming ideas.
A team of 10 Google employees, with design and engineering expertise, volunteered their time to plan and facilitate the design sprint as part of a Google.org program that provides technical expertise to support nonprofits and civic entities.
The app is being designed with Iowa farmers in mind to help them reduce expensive nitrogen inputs and improve conservation practices. Castellano says currently farmers don?t have a tool like this available, and that the new app will further advance the process for nitrogen recommendations like never before.
The Iowa farmers who were involved in the design process were excited to be engaged in the project from the very start.
Now that the initial design phase has been completed, INREC and ISU are hopeful that they have designed a prototype for a decision-support tool to reduce uncertainty around the optimum rate of nitrogen fertilizer application for Iowa’s nearly 85,000 farming operations.
This new decision-making tool aims to improve productivity, profitability, and environmental performance while contributing to the state’s goal of reducing nitrogen loss by 45%.
