ReadMe

Metadata for the Alternative Crops for Cache Valley project completed as part of the Climate Adaptation Science program at Utah State University.

This metadata file describes the data for a project completed by Emily Burgess, Patrick Kelly, Jace Colby, Ren Weinstock, and Mitchell Parsons as part of the Climate Adaptation Science Program. The goal of this project is to help interested producers identify alternative crops they could grow that could diversify their portfolio, reduce their water demand, and help them better adapt to variable climate conditions. We investigated the climatic and economic suitability of a suite of alternative and currenlty grown crops for the Cache Valley region of Idaho and Utah. We defined Cache Valley as the area of Cache County, Utah and Franklin County, Idaho. We defined current crops as those that account for >3% of agricultural acerage within this region. We compiled a list of alternative crops using expert opinion and a literature review.

Once we had our list of crops, we explore climatic suitability based on three criteria: water use, frost free period required, and growing degree days required. We used a literature review and university extension documents to identify these requirements. We then used available climate projections from AdaptWest to identify likely future climate conditions for Cachce Valley under two emission scenarios: SSP2 (low-moderate) and SSP5 (moderate-high). With these crop requirements and climate projections we then quantified crop suitability based on if future climate projections met crop needs.

In tandem with climatic suitability, we explored economic suitability of these alternative crops using historical crop prices and production costs based on available survey data...

DATAFILES

CompiledClimateData_SeasonLength.csv

This file contains information on the future climate projections under two emission scenarios.

Columns

1. Year: the year of the climate projection.
2. Scenario: the emissions scenario modeled.
3. SummerTemp_F: the projected mean summer temperature.
4. AnnualPrec_in: the projected annual total precipitation in inches.
5. SummerPrec_in: the projected May - September precipitation in inches.
6. FFP_days: the projected duration of the frost free period.
7. eFFP_day: the projected first fall frost Julian date.
8. DegreeDays_5: the projected accumulated degree days with a base temperature of 5 celsius.
9. "Month"_AverageTemp_F: the projected mean temperature in farenheit for each month from April - October.
10. "Month"_MaximumTemp_F: the projected maximum temperature in farenheit for each month from April - October.
11. "Month"_MinimumTemp_F: the projected minimum temperature in farenheit for each month from April - October.
12. Soil_"##": the projected month when soil temperatures are expected to be above "##" degrees farenheit.
13. GrowingSeasonStart_"##": the projected growing season start date for crops that require a germination temperature of ## degrees farenheit.
14. GrowingSeasonEnd: The projected end of the growing season based on first frost date.
15. SeasonLenght_##: The length of the growing season for crops that require a germination temperature of "##" degrees farenheit.

CropSuitabilities.xlsx

This file contains the final crop suitability rankings for the 24 investigated crops. This file contains two tables, one for each emissions scenario, with eth same structure.

Columns

1. Crop: the crop of interest for this row of data
2. Water Use: The estiamted water use of the crop, ranked in categories from low to high based on a literature review.
3. Excess frost-free days "year": the differnece in projected frost free days for a given year and the crops estiamted frost free day requirements.
4. Excess degree days "year": the difference in projected degree days for a given year and the crops estimated degree day requirements.
5. Suitability "year": the crops projected suitability from 0 (low) to 3 (high) for a given year. Crops were given a 0 or 1 ranking for frost free days and degree days and a 0.5 or 1 rating for water use.

historical_prices.csv

This file contains gross revenue and estimated profit per acre based on data from the last 30 years for each of the focal crops when grown in irrigated and unirrigated conditions.

Columns 1. crop: the crop of interest for this row of data 2. price: the estimated earnings from growing one acre of the crop of interest. 3. WaterUse: The estiamted water use of the crop, ranked in categories from low to high based on a literature review. 4. profit_est: earnings minus estimated cost to produce one acre of the crop 5. Irrigation: whether or not the crop is normally irrigated 6. dryland_profit: the estimated profit if the crop were grown without irrigation 7. order: a column used for sorting

raw_prices.csv

This file contains the date used to calculate the earnings estimates based off of data from the National Agriculutral Statistical Service

Columns 1. crop: the crop of interest for this row of data 2. price: the mean price that a unit of that crop could be sold for in the given year 3. year: the year that the price data is from 4. unit: the unit of the price data 5. source: where the data is from

sources.csv

This file contains links to all of the datasources used for this project.

Columns 1. crop: the crop of interest for that row of data 2. Market Yield: source for the expected yield for each crop of interest 3. Dryland yield: sourge for the expected yield for each crop of interest when grown without irrigation 4. Market Price: the price that each crop of interest could be sold for. 5. costs: the expected cost to grow each crop of intrest