AGRICULTURAL MANAGEMENT DECISION AIDS DRIVEN BY REAL-TIME SATELLITE DATA

In a NASA-sponsored program entitled ''Use of Earth and Space Science Data Over the Internet'' scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Mad ison have developed a suite of products for agriculture that are based in satellite and conventional observations, as well as state-of-the a rt forecast models of the atmosphere and soil-canopy environments. The se products include an irrigation scheduling product based in satellit e estimates of daily solar energy, a frost protection product that rel ies on prediction models and satellite estimates of clouds, and a prod uct for the prediction of foliar disease that is based in satellite ne t radiation, rainfall measured by NEXRAD, and a detailed model of the soil-canopy environment. During the growing season, the first two prod ucts are available in near-real time on the Internet. The last product involving foliar disease depends on a decision support system named W ISDOM developed by the University of Wisconsin-Extension, which reside s locally on growers' home computers. Growers interface WISDOM with a server to obtain the rainfall, meteorological data, surface radiation inputs, and canopy model output required by WISDOM for the blight mode ls.