PEORIA, Ill. – It was an overcast, cold and blustery morning of 19 degrees on Dec. 3, 2024, the opening day of the 42nd annual Greater Peoria Farm Show (GPFS). Those farmers who utilized the USDA’s new weather-related Dashboard for Agricultural Water Use and Nutrient Management (DAWN) online toolkit knew in advance to bundle up against the cold.

That’s because DAWN, funded by the USDA and offered free with no advertisements, combines both standard National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) global weather data and current regional forecasts to provide accurate seasonal climate projections ranging from two weeks to six months. On hand at the 2024 GPFS to explain how the tool works were Talon Becker and Tara Heath, University of Illinois Extension commercial ag educators who operated an information booth to acquaint farmers with the secure and confidential resource.

“DAWN is a set of online tools that farmers can use to take historical weather data as well as forecasts to make better decisions,” Becker said. “There are several tools there; one is a crop progress tool that is currently for corn only. You can put in your planting date, the maturity of that corn and your location, and it will tell you the likelihood of emergence, V3, V6, R1 or other stages on a certain date. This way you can better determine when you want to do your side-dress (or) your fungicide applications, especially if you’re scheduling with a co-op.”

Another online tool provides a broader sense of seasonal growing days compared to short- and long-term trends for all crops. In addition, a dry-down calculator offers producers insight on when corn may reach proper moisture levels for marketing based on regional and national trends.

“There is also a data viewer that is taking some of this climate data and showing you the likelihood of (certain weather scenarios). Will it be wetter than normal three months from now, will it be warmer? We’re also looking backward at how well this model performed last year or two years ago. We’re looking backward so that people can develop trust and understanding of what works better in their area,” Becker said.

When fully utilized, DAWN can provide producers with tools that support common decisions such as crop planning and management, hybrid maturity selection, planting, fertilizer and pesticide timing, grain marketing, workflow optimization and field prioritization, according to the USDA.

“We currently have farmers beta testing these tools, which are still pretty new. Right now, we’re trying to get farmers, agronomists and farm managers to use them. There is a way to provide feedback within the tool. If you click on the box in the corner with an exclamation tool you can update us on what’s working for you and where there might be a bug. This will go to our developers and design team who are constantly trying to make this tool better and more intuitive,” Becker explained.

The forecasts are gleaned from NOAA data and the CWRF (Climate extension of the Weather Research and Forecasting) model, which Becker said was developed specifically for the Midwest. “Where WRF and NOAA forecast across the country, (CWRF) has been tuned to really focus on the Corn Belt. It does slightly better in terms of precipitation prediction and much better in terms of temperature prediction in the 3-6 month window,” he said. 

DAWN can help growers to make better decisions in times of tighter margins, which is again expected for fiscal year 2025, Heath added. “With producers facing tighter margins and profits, this can help them make really good management decisions to remain profitable,” she said.

For more information about the DAWN toolkit visit dawn.umd.edu. Though the toolkit is available as a phone app, more features and data are accessible through the online website, according to Becker.