Agricultural data are crucial to many aspects of production, commerce, and research involved in feeding the global community. However, in most agricultural research disciplines standard best practices for data management and publication do not exist. Here we propose a set of best practices in the areas of peer review, minimal dataset development, data repositories, citizen science initiatives, and support for best data management. We illustrate some of these best practices with a case study in dairy agroecosystems research. While many common, and increasingly disparate data management and publication practices are entrenched in agricultural disciplines, opportunities are readily available for promoting and adopting best practices that better enable and enhance data-intensive agricultural research and production.

DATA REPORT article Front. Sustain. Food Syst., 15 February 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.612785

As part of the Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) project, the FRST database was developed to consolidate and preserve U.S. soil test correlation and calibration data. Legacy phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) soil test data that met a minimum requirement were included in the database. The FRST database initially included over 1,200 individual trials from a range of years, cropping systems, geographic regions, and management practices. The FRST database is being migrated from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to a relational database format housed within the USDA-ARS Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS) to be accessed via the online FRST decision support tool. Data will be continually added to the FRST database through an online submission form following peer review by the FRST team. The FRST database and associated decision support tool will aid researchers, extension associates, consultants, and farmers in improving fertilizer recommendations for crops across the United States.

Abstract Soil testing is an important practice for nutrient management in agricultural production systems. In the United States, soil‐test methods and interpretations vary across state lines, making institutional collaborations challenging and crop fertilization guidelines inconsistent. Uniformity and transparency in P and K soil fertility testing and fertilizer recommendations are needed to enhance end‐user adoption. The Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) project is developing a comprehensive database of P and K correlation–calibration results that can be accessed through an online tool for use in research and fertilizer recommendation development. This collaborative project, which includes over 30 land‐grant universities, the USDA‐ARS, the USDA‐NRCS, and several not‐for‐profit organizations, contains a national survey describing the current status of soil testing, minimum requirements for correlation–calibration data inclusion, and database population and creating FRST as a user‐friendly online decision support tool. The FRST project will provide more consistent, transparent, and science‐based information for crop nutrient recommendations across the United States.

Nutrient recycling is fundamental to sustainable agricultural systems, but few mechanisms exist to ensure that surplus manure nutrients from animal feeding operations are transported for use on nutrient-deficient croplands. As a result, manure nutrients concentrate in locations where they can threaten environmental health and devalue manure as a fertilizer resource. This study advances the concept of the "manureshed" - the lands surrounding animal feeding operations onto which manure nutrients can be redistributed to meet environmental, production, and economic goals. Manuresheds can be managed at multiple scales, for example, on farms with both animals and crops, among animal farms and crop farms within a county, or even among animal farms and crop farms in distant counties. With a focus on redistribution among counties, we classified the 3109 counties of the contiguous United States by their capacity to either supply manure phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) from confined livestock production ("sources") or to assimilate and remove excess P and N via crops ("sinks"). Manure nutrient source counties were identified in 40 of the 48 states, with a substantial concentration in the southern US. Source counties for manure P greatly outnumbered source counties for manure N (390 vs. 100), and 99 of the 100 manure N source counties were also source counties for manure P. Conversely, sink counties for manure N outnumbered sink counties for manure P (2766 vs. 2317). We used the P balances of the source and sink counties to delineate four manuresheds dominated by various combinations of confined hog, poultry, dairy, and beef industries. The four manuresheds differed in the transport distances needed to assimilate excess manure P from their respective source areas (from 147 +/- 51 km for a beef dominated manureshed to 368 +/- 140 km for a poultry dominated manureshed), highlighting the need for systems-level strategies to promote manure nutrient recycling that operate across local, county, regional, and national scales.

National and international open-access agricultural research databases are needed to help solve problems at watershed, regional, and national scales, and to connect productivity, soil health, and environmental quality to food quantity and quality. There are some established, open-access agricultural research networks with extensive research data in the United States, but there is a major need to improve connections between those networks and the emerging data in order to address complex questions. Improving the connections and flow of information among agricultural research networks will enhance the scientific community's ability to simultaneously increase crop yield, sustainability of natural resources, and environmental quality, as well as food, feed, and forage quality, and thus human and animal health. Establishing a network of agricultural databases is crucial for facilitating information flow among different research disciplines. Doing so will also enhance multidisciplinary research opportunities and help build transdisciplinary teams that can provide answers to complex, whole-system research questions and thus solve some of the globe's greatest challenges.

JOURNAL OF SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION NOV/DEC 2018—VOL. 73, NO. 6 Jorge A. Delgado, Bruce Vandenberg, Nicole Kaplan, Donna Neer, Greg Wilson, Robert D'Adamo, Jennifer Carter, Laura O’Gan, Nadene Grow, Roger Marquez, Dan Arthur, Marlen Eve, Stephen J. Del Grosso, Jane M.F. Johnson, Douglas L. Karlen, Lisa Durso, John Finley, Veronica Acosta-Martinez, David B. Knaebel, Daren Harmel, and Justin D. Derner Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS): A network of networks connecting food security, the environment, and human health doi:10.2489/jswc.73.6.158A

Many scientists have begun to refer to the earth surface environment from the upper canopy to the depths of bedrock as the critical zone (CZ). Identification of the CZ as an integral object worthy of study implicitly posits that the study of the whole earth surface will provide benefits that do not arise when studying the individual parts. To study the CZ, however, requires prioritizing among the measurements that can be made – and we do not generally agree on the priorities. Currently, the Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory (SSHCZO) is expanding from a small original focus area (0.08 km2, Shale Hills catchment), to a larger watershed (164 km2, Shavers Creek watershed) and is grappling with the prioritization. This effort is an expansion from a monolithologic first-order forested catchment to a watershed that encompasses several lithologies (shale, sandstone, limestone) and land use types (forest, agriculture). The goal of the project remains the same: to understand water, energy, gas, solute, and sediment (WEGSS) fluxes that are occurring today in the context of the record of those fluxes over geologic time as recorded in soil profiles, the sedimentary record, and landscape morphology. Given the small size of the Shale Hills catchment, the original design incorporated measurement of as many parameters as possible at high temporal and spatial density. In the larger Shavers Creek watershed, however, we must focus the measurements. We describe a strategy of data collection and modeling based on a geomorphological and land use framework that builds on the hillslope as the basic unit. Interpolation and extrapolation beyond specific sites relies on geophysical surveying, remote sensing, geomorphic analysis, the study of natural integrators such as streams, groundwaters or air, and application of a suite of CZ models. We hypothesize that measurements of a few important variables at strategic locations within a geomorphological framework will allow development of predictive models of CZ behavior. In turn, the measurements and models will reveal how the larger watershed will respond to perturbations both now and into the future.