April 2003
Greg Blumhoff, SSMC Manager
Planning for the upcoming cropping season is well underway for most growers and operators across the Midwest. Many have started to incorporate site-specific technology and applications into their management programs. As one begins to explore different routes to improve sampling, pesticide, or fertilizer application, challenges may arise when considering what to buy and where to focus time. The skills and information required to use precision agriculture appears daunting, often discouraging experimentation.
As one possible solution, growers and consultants should consider the vast array of free and/or low cost data sources available for download on the web. The following websites are a condensed list of resources where remote sensing data (e.g. aerial photography, satellite data and digital orthophotos) and GIS data can be downloaded. GIS data are available at the National, State, and local level and range anywhere from road maps to soil survey data. The websites provided include a link to the data source and a short list of the types of data available.
CAAGIS: (Orthophotos, Topography, DEMs, SSURGO, STATSGO soils)
http://danpatch.ecn.purdue.edu/~caagis/
ESRI: (Titan Sure Maps, Census 2000 Tiger, USGS NED Relief)
http://www.esri.com/
GIS data depot: (DEMs, DOQQs, DRGs, Wetlands)
http://www.gisdatadepot.com/catalog/US/
USDA: (Links to national, state, and local agencies such as NASS)
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/land/nrcsdata.html
PUCO GIS Repository: (Statewide GIS base maps)
http://www.puc.state.oh.us/pucogis/
Digital Spatial Data of Illinois: (DOQQs, DRGs, Topography data)
http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/nsdihome/ISGSindex.html
Free Geodata: (Global datasets (DEMs, Topography, weather)
http://www.geog.uni-hannover.de/phygeo/geodaten.html
Multispec: (Free remote sensing analysis software)
http://www.lars.purdue.edu/projects/