A new tool developed by the OpenET team, supported by NASA, DRI, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), aims to assist farmers and ranchers in managing water resources more effectively. The Farm and Ranch Management Support (FARMS) tool offers high-resolution water data directly to small farm operators, enhancing decision-making in agricultural planning and water conservation.
“It’s all about finding new ways to make satellite data easier to access and use for as many people as possible,” said Forrest Melton, the OpenET project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. “The goal is to empower users with actionable, science-based data to support decisions about water management across the West.”
The FARMS resource is an extension of OpenET’s Data Explorer tool launched in 2021. It provides evapotranspiration data using satellite information combined with agricultural and weather data. This model calculates final evapotranspiration figures essential for agriculture, irrigation planning, drought monitoring, and fire risk evaluation.
“This amount of data can be complicated to use, so user input helped us shape FARMS,” said Jordan Harding from HabitatSeven. “It provides a mobile-friendly, map-based web interface designed to make it as easy as possible to get automated, regular reports.”
“The FARMS tool is designed to help farmers optimize irrigation timing and amounts,” said Sara Larsen, CEO of OpenET. “All of this reduces waste, lowers costs, and informs crop planning.”
Beyond agriculture, FARMS benefits land managers assessing wildfire impacts or tracking changes over time due to forest management plans.
To develop FARMS further, the team held sessions with stakeholders like farmers and resource managers who requested features such as field-to-field comparisons for better irrigation planning.
“If I had told my father about this 15 years ago he would have called me crazy,” said Dwane Roth from Kansas. “Thanks to OpenET…this tool is enabling us to produce more food with less water.”
For Brett Baker from California: “Using FARMS gives us the ability…to understand what worked and what didn’t year-to-year.”
Over coming months there will be presentations at conferences gathering feedback for further refinement of this evolving platform according Will Carrara from OpenET.
“I think there are many applications we haven’t even thought of yet,” Baker added.
