Nutrient Tracking Tool (NTT)

Please refer to the information posted at NTT site, including the user and technical documents and presentations, to evaluate the capabilities and limitations of this tool for your use.

Why am I creating an account?

This is done for your own protection. Your projects are protected and you are the only user that can access, save, modify, delete, and/or copy your projects. Our programmers also have access to your projects for any technical issues that you might have. However, we respect your privacy and do not share your data with anyone without your official request.

At what scale can I use NTT?

NTT could be used at three major levels

i) Field and watershed (combination of fields) - The current NTT and NTT-RE versions provide the field and watershed scales.

ii) County - NTT have been simulated for major soils, cropping, conservation management practices, and weather at each county in the U.S. Also, a user interface (UI) program is written to access the results of these simulations. Currently 10 states (AL, AR, GA, IL, IN, IA, LA, MD, OH, PA) are being simulated. It is expected that the UI program be released to the public in January 2024. The “County” version of NTT will be free to the public when completed and released in September 2024.

iii) Project - This program addresses the request from user for simulating NTT for number of fields at one time. In this case users provide the fields’ data to us as batch files and we will provide the results in a batch files as well. This requires additional programming. This program is currently available. Due to the required programing, there might include a minimal fee to establish “project” program for users.

What are some examples of projects that are using NTT?

NTT is used by numerous producers, extension staff throughout the US. NTT is also used by many organizations and agencies such as Freshwater trust, Chesapeake Bay, Sustainable Environment Consultants, Soil Waters Outcomes Fund, Iowa Dept of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Pennsylvania DEQ, Soil and Water Outcomes Fund (SWOF), Maryland Water Trading Program & MD Dept of Agriculture).

Is NTT validated for my state?

NTT is validated in following four stages and the results are posted in NTT website
Stage 1. To obtain a general parameterization for each state/region, a series of NTT runs simulating common crop rotations, soils and, weather patterns for the region is done and the results are compared with expected crop yield and nutrient and sediment loss values obtained from National Agriculture Statistics Service, USDA (NASS 2017). (please see the list of States in validation tab in NTT program). If your state is not included, you still able to use NTT for the listed cropping system in the program. We are in process of completing stage 1 for all mainland States in US.
Stage 2. During this stage, the field-scale measured data from various sources (e.g., local measured studies and collaborators) are used to finalize the regional APEX parameters.
Stage 3. The final parameters obtained from stage 2 will be used to repeat the process described in stage 1. However, the various conservation practices, common to the local region, are also simulated and evaluated for all soils and weather conditions during this stage.
Stage 4. The final results are evaluated and presented to local stakeholders (if any) and collaborators. The results of the parameterization (for all stages) would become available on the NTT site.

Frequently Asked Questions