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Long Term Agroecosystem Research Overview

Agriculture faces tremendous challenges in meeting multiple, diverse societal goals, including a safe and plentiful food supply, climate change adaptation/mitigation, supplying sources of bioenergy, improving water/air/soil quality, and maintaining biodiversity. The LTAR network enables long-term, trans-disciplinary science across farm resource regions to address these challenges. The goal of this research network is to ensure sustained crop and livestock production and ecosystem services from agroecosystems, and to forecast and verify the effects of environmental trends, public policies, and emerging technologies. Ultimately, LTAR is expected to provide a wide array of clients, partners, and stakeholders with four basic outcomes:
  1. Agroecosystem productivity is sustainably enhanced by the development and application of new technologies
  2. Mitigation and adaptation of agroecosystems to climate change is improved by more accurate predictions of resource responses to system drivers
  3. Stronger linkages to other long-term research networks improves conservation and environmental quality in agricultural landscapes
  4. The socio-economic viability of, and opportunities for, rural communities are enhanced through educational outreach by LTAR scientists and collaborators
For the fully interactive version of this LTAR data explorer visit https://ltar.nal.usda.gov.

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LTAR Research Sites

Data from the following LTAR sites are presented. They are related to topics such as agricultural sustainability, climate change, ecosystem services, and natural resource conservation at the watershed or landscape scale.

  • Archbold Biological Station (ABS), Venus, FL
  • Cook Agronomy Farm (CAF), Pullman, WA
  • Central Mississippi River Basin (CMRB), Columbia, MO
  • Central Plains Experimental Range (CPER), Cheyenne, WY; Fort Collins, CO; Nunn, CO
  • Eastern Corn Belt (ECB), Columbus, OH; West Lafayette, IN
  • Gulf Atlantic Coastal Range (GACP), Tifton, GA
  • Great Basin (GB), Boise, ID; Burns, OR
  • Jornada Experimental Range (JER), Las Cruces, NM
  • Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), southwestern MI
  • Lower Mississippi River Basin (LMRB), Oxford, MS; AR; LA; MO
  • Northern Plains (NP), Mandan, ND
  • Platte River-High Plains Aquifer (PRHP), Lincoln, NE
  • Southern Plains (SP), El Reno, OK
  • Texas Gulf (TG), Riesel, TX
  • Upper Chesapeake Bay (UCB), University Park, PA
  • Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB), Ames, IA; MN; WI
  • Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW), Tucson, AZ; Tombstone, AZ
  • Lower Chesapeake Bay (LCB), Beltsville, MD

    • Datasets

    70 datasets

    Fluff grass mesocosm: mites and nematodes

    NAL Geospatial Catalog

      A mesocosm experiment was conducted on fluff grass (Erioneuron pulchellum) plants to look at the effect of exclusion of mites (with chlordane), nematodes (NEMACUR), mites and nematodes, on soil available, total and microbial nitrogen.

      Fluffgrass anion exchange resins bags for NO3

      NAL Geospatial Catalog

        An ion exchange resin bag technique (Binkley 1984, Lajtha 1988) was used to determine N availability in the rhizosphere of fluffgrass. Ion exchange resin bags were used to determine NO3.

        Termite bait data

        NAL Geospatial Catalog

          Data for Jornada LTERII termite bait weight loss. Toilet paper roll termite baits are placed on grids on each consumer plot. Data include initial bait weights and bait weights after baits have been retrieved from the field once each year.

          JER standard gauge monthly precipitation data

          NAL Geospatial Catalog

            The objective of this long-term project is to measure the precipitation across the entire Jornada Experimental Range. This is achieved by using a network of standard-can rain gauges to continually collect the precipitation as it occurs.