U2U climate initiative earns Purdue TEAM Award

April 30, 2015  


WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University faculty and staff members of a multi-university initiative to make global climate information of better use in farming will receive the College of Agriculture's 2015 TEAM award.

TEAM, an acronym for Together Everyone Achieves More, is given annually to a Purdue team of professionals for their interdisciplinary achievements. This year's honorees are the Purdue members of Useful to Usable, or U2U as it is called, a climate research and education project based at Purdue.

A ceremony to recognize the team will be 2-4 p.m. May 11 in Pfendler Hall’s Deans Auditorium on the Purdue campus. The event is open to the public.

"U2U is an outstanding example of the TEAM Award principles at work," said Jay Akridge, Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture. "The U2U team’s innovative approach is building the technical capacity and communication network needed to help Midwestern farmers manage the challenges of today's climatic volatility as well as longer-term climate change."

Akridge noted that research and Extension faculty, staff, and graduate students work across a wide range of agricultural, social and information technology sciences to conduct research, develop practical applications and deliver the information in creative ways to those who need it.

Useful to Usable offers a suite of online tools created to help farmers and agricultural advisers manage increasingly variable weather and climate conditions across the Corn Belt. They provide historical climate data that help inform purchasing, marketing and activity planning throughout the growing cycle. Data in all tools are updated regularly, even daily in some cases.

U2U is composed of 50 faculty, staff and students from nine universities who specialize in applied climatology, crop modeling, agronomy, cybertechnology, agricultural economics and other social sciences. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Members of Purdue’s U2U team are Otto C. Doering III, Benjamin M. Gramig and Paul V. Preckel of the agricultural economics department; State Climatologist Dev Niyogi of agronomy and Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences; Linda S. Prokopy and Melissa J. Widhalm of forestry and natural resources; Hans F. Schmitz, Extension educator in Gibson County; and Larry L. Biehl, Christopher G. Panza, X. Carol Song and Lan Zhao of ITap research computing.

The team will receive a commemorative plaque to be displayed in the Agricultural Administration Building and a $10,000 cash prize to continue its work.

More information about U2U tools is available on the U2U website at http://agclimate4u.org.           

Writer: Keith Robinson, 765-494-2722, robins89@purdue.edu 

Source: Jay Akridge, 765-494-8391, akridge@purdue.edu

Ag Communications: (765) 494-2722;
Keith Robinson, robins89@purdue.edu
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