Farmers and their agricultural advisers have little way of knowing which fertilizer management products and tools perform as advertised without potentially costly, time-consuming trial and error. Research trials can help, but it is difficult to interpret the results of a trial beyond the specific location where that trial was conducted.

Want to know if a research trial conducted somewhere in Ohio is relevant to your farm in Iowa? TEDs can help you do that.

TEDs group places where long-term climatic conditions and soil properties are similar. These are the conditions that have the biggest impact on crop growth and the effectiveness of nutrient management products and tools. The TED Framework thus provides a powerful platform for decision-making about nutrient management.

Note that annual seasonal weather variation greatly affects tool and product performance. Therefore users should view trial results within the TED framework as most relevant on average over the long-term, rather than for any given growing season.

The TED concept was developed by Drs. Ken Cassman, Justin Van Wart, Patricio Grassini, Juan I. Rattalino Edreira and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the Global Yield Gap Atlas.