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Long Term Agroecosystem Research Overview

In pursuit of sustainable U.S. agriculture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched the Long-Term Agroecosystem (LTAR) network. The LTAR network is composed of 18 locations distributed across the contiguous United States working together to address national and local agricultural priorities and advance the sustainable intensification of U.S. agriculture.

The LTAR network represents a range of major U.S. agroecosystems, including annual row cropping systems, grazinglands, and integrated systems representative of roughly 49 percent of cereal production, 30 percent of forage production, and 32 percent of livestock production in the United States. Furthermore, the LTAR sites span geographic and climatic gradients representing a variety of challenges and opportunities to U.S. agriculture.

The LTAR network uses experimentation and coordinated observations to develop a national roadmap for the sustainable intensification of agricultural production. While the LTAR network is a new network, experimentation and measurements began at some LTAR sites more than 100 years ago, while other locations started their research as recently as 19 years ago.

A primary goal of LTAR is to develop and to share science-based findings with producers and stakeholders. Tools, technologies, and management practices resulting from LTAR network science will be applied to the sustainable intensification of U.S. agriculture. Technical innovations, including new production techniques, genetics, and sensor infrastructure applied at the farm/ranch level can increase the capacity for adaptive management, reduce time and operational costs, and increase profits and the quality of life for producers.

For full list of LTAR sites, view the sites matrix at https://ltar.ars.usda.gov/sites/.

For more information about the LTAR network visit: https://ltar.ars.usda.gov

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Datasets

619 datasets

Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho (Precipitation)

    An extensive precipitation database has been developed over the past 35 years with the first records starting in January 1962 and going through September 1996 from the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed located near the north end of the Owyhee Mountains in southwest Idaho. Precipitation ranges from 236 mm on the lowest elevations at the north end of the watershed to 1123 mm at the southwest corner of the watershed. The gauge network was changed in 1967-1968 from a single unshielded, universal-recording gauge at each location to the dual-gauge system that is presently used. The dualgauge system consists of an unshielded and a shielded universal-recording gauge with orifices 3.05 m above the ground. The number of dual-gauge sites was reduced from the original 46 in 1968 to 17 by 1996. Also, several sites have been added and/or taken out of the network at various times for special studies. There are continuous 35 year records available for 12 sites, 20-32 year records available for 8 sites, 10-19 year records available for 25 sites, and 4-9 year records for 8 sites for a total of 53 sites. All of these data have been stored as breakpoint and hourly records in the USDA-ARS, Northwest Watershed Research Center database. These breakpoint and hourly data are available.

    Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho (Climate)

      An extensive, 33 year (1964-1996), climatic database has been developed for three climate stations on the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (RCEW) located near the north end of the Owyhee Mountains in southwest Idaho. The longest records (1964-1996) are for daily maximum and minimum temperature. The length of record for other weather elements that include relative humidity, solar radiation, wind speed and direction, daily Class A pan evaporation and barometric pressure varies, but in general is from 1974-1996. Weather sensors have varied from hygrothermographs with spring-driven clocks and charts to electronic sensors with the data telemetered daily to the Northwest Watershed Research Center (NWRC) office in Boise, Idaho. Most of the data, since the early 1980's, were measured and stored electronically, therefore, hourly data are available for most climatic elements between the early 1980's and 1996. These data can be accessed from the USDA-ARS Northwest Watershed Research Center database.

      Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho (Sediment)

        Automated Sigma pump samplers were used at all RCEW gauging stations to collect instantaneous point measures of suspended-sediment concentration. The US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Northwest Watershed Research Center initiated a stream discharge and suspended-sediment research program at Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed in the early 1960s. Samples of suspended-sediment concentration were collected at Outlet, Tollgate, and Reynolds Mountain East gauging stations starting in the 1960s and continuing to the present.

        Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho (Discharge)

          Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed discharge records are available for 13 stations with varying lengths of record ranging from 8 to 34 years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Northwest Watershed Research Center initiated a stream discharge and suspended-sediment research program at Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed in the early 1960s. Continuous discharge measurements began at two sites in 1963, at three additional sites in 1964, and at eight additional sites in subsequent years.

          Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, Idaho (Lysimeter)

            Lysimeters are instruments that measure water and/or solute movement in soils. The primary purpose for these lysimeters was to measure evapotranspiration (ET); these data describe changes in soil water during the snow-free season. In addition to measuring changes in total soil water, soil water content profiles and soil temperature profiles were measured within or adjacent to the lysimeters and are reported. Two pairs of soil lysimeters were installed in the RCEW in 1967, one pair at the Lower Sheep Creek climate station (designated the east and west lysimeters), separated, center to center, by 3.6 m, and the other pair at the Reynolds Mountain climate station (designated north and south), separated by 4.7 m. These lysimeters were hydraulic weighing lysimeters in which an inner cylindrical tank containing soil is set within a slightly larger outer cylinder.