Difm.farm: A Tool to Improve NRCS’s Nutrient Management (CPS 590) Practice

From 2020 to 2025, the NRCS-CIG On-farm Trials program provided funding to the Data-Intensive Farm Management Project to develop the now-publicly accessible difm.farm online cyber-infrastructure (“tool”). Difm.farm is currently enabling farmers and their advisors to conduct hundreds of full-field on-farm precision experiments, then automatedly process, manage, and analyze the resultant data and write reports on the practical management implications of the analysis. The presentation will propose a method of using the difm.farm tool to improve the operation of the NRCS Nutrient Management Conservation Practice Standard 590, making it possible to fairly compensate but not over-compensate farmers for reducing nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer application rates.