Step-by-step enrollment:

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  1. Create an account

  2. Upload boundary files

  3. Run Smart Defaults - Historic Rotation

  4. Run Smart Defaults - Future Rotations

  5. Correct verifiable years with farm records

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4. Entering future projections via Smart Defaults

After filing in all the data from the above section based on your farm records, the next task is to populate your future rotations. We require data through 2030 and these years are used as a placeholder for how you predict your operation to run. The management practices in the future rotations are not prescriptive and are simply used as a guide to build out the general value of your project. The data is required to be updated on a year by year basis. 

Much like the historic records, you may use approximations for the details of each section, such as dates and rates. Use a general rule of thumb when filling in future rotations. For example if you believe that you will continue a corn / cover / soy / cover rotation, customize a three year rotation through 2030. In this step, you can change the parameters to project how different agronomic decisions around conservation practices will affect your potential NRT issuance over the course of the 10 year contract. 

Inputting future rotations in Smart Defaults is similar to the historic Smart Defaults entry, however, given these are future rotations and we do not have satellite imagery to input the crop rotation, we have built a crop rotations tool to populate your Project spreadsheet. 

  1. On the crop rotations page, select the “Customize Crop Rotations” button.  

  1. The crop rotations tool allows you to apply different crop rotations to different fields. Select all fields that you predict will have the same crop rotation.

  2. Select crops on a per year basis to build out the rotation for that field. You may add up to three crops per year. Add “Create Crop Rotation”.

  1. Repeat the Process for fields that have different rotations

  1. Select all fields

  1. Click Import Selected Crop Rotations

  2. The remaining process for Smart Defaults is identical to entering historic data. See “Explanation of Smart Defaults” below for further guidance. 

    Explanation of Smart Defaults section

    Crop Rotations

    After selecting “Crop rotations” the page will take a moment to load. At this point, Smart Defaults is connecting to the NASS Crop Data Layer database to identify historic rotations based on satellite imagery defined by your field boundaries. 

    Scroll left to right to look at all the years CDL has identified crop rotations. If the populated crops do not reflect your specific operations, you can override any of the crops in rotation using the drop down menu. This usually only happens in earlier years (~2000 - 2008).

    Check the box to the right of the fields you want to import

    Select “Import Crop Rotations” to import the data to your Nori spreadsheet and return to the Smart Defaults homepage.

    Planting and Harvest

    To import data associated with planting and harvest events, select the box to the left of each crop species. This will populate the general planting / harvest dates for these crops based on your region. 

    This section is based on general practices, therefore you do not need to focus on specific dates or yields on a year by year basis. For example, if you generally harvest corn in early May and harvest in early fall, select May 1 for planting and October 1 for harvest.

    If your crop has multiple harvests throughout the year, such as alfalfa, select “Add event” to add in additional harvest dates and yields for this crop type. 

    Tillage and Termination Events

    This section applies to all types of soil disturbance and crop termination based on the crop type. Therefore, only select broad spectrum herbicide when used to terminate a crop, such as a cover crop. Only select “No tillage” when planting was the only soil disturbance applied to a crop. 

    This section also includes ability to apply more than one tillage or termination event to a crop species and can account for primary, secondary or multiple tillage passes. 

    Again, assign a generic date to the tillage date. If “No tillage” is selected, use the same date as the crop planting date from the previous page.

    Irrigation

    This section must be filled out prior to the fertilizer section as it is used in predicting fertilizer types. Therefore, if none of your fields were irrigated, select “I Don’t Use Irrigation”.

    Select general dates and rates for each crop species type listed. If some of your fields have irrigation while others do not, regardless of crop rotation, you may run smart defaults twice on the two types of field (irrigated vs not irrigated).

    Fertilizer and Synthetic Nitrogen

    This section only includes synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. As with previous Smart Default tasks, you can select multiple fertilizer events per crop type.  Using the rule of thumb approach, select the crop(s) that were fertilized and populate the data associated with your general fertilizer application. 


    Manure and Organic Matter Additions

    This section covers all organic matter (manure, soybean meal, etc) fertilizers applied to your field. If you did not use manure, you can skip this step. Populate the data associated with your general approach to manure and organic matter additions on a crop by crop basis.