Title –  Examination of Near Real-time Rainfall Products and Satellite Greenness Indices for Estimating Patch and Landscape Forage Production

Project Leader  – Jay Angerer, Ph.D.

Activities –

1. Examine correspondence of three different near real-time rainfall products to that of fixed-location automated weather stations located on a private ranch near Marathon, TX.
2. Verify the ability of the PHYGROW forage simulation to accurately predict standing crop of herbaceous vegetation using the best rainfall product determined in #1 above as a driving variable.
3. Verify the ability of the PHYGROW simulation model to accurately predict standing crop of herbaceous vegetation under grazing using rainfall from the product selected in #1 above as a driving variable.
4. Determine the feasibility of using MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and/or Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) as a covariate in cokriging PHYGROW model standing crop to produce a landscape map of forage production on the ranch.