Save the Dates: February 20-21 or March 5-6, 2020

Agriculture is an intensely data-driven field, but many farmers, agronomists, and CCAs don’t have computer science backgrounds. In this two-day workshop, researchers from the University of Illinois will teach you about free tools you can use with your own farm’s data to improve your fertilizer application rates, look at conditions across time, and more.

Our upcoming workshops:

  • February 20-21, 2020
    1030 NCSA Building (directions)
    1205 W. Clark
    Urbana, IL
  • March 5-6, 2020
    1030 NCSA Building (directions)
    1205 W. Clark
    Urbana, IL

Estimated timeline for these workshops:

Thursday:

  • 8 – 9 am: Breakfast will be provided
  • 9 – noon: Setup and introduction to R, R Studio, and QGIS software
  • Noon – 1: Lunch will be provided
  • 1 – 4-ish:  How to access publicly available weather data
  • Possibly at 4 pm, timing permitting: Special event
  • Dinner on your own (ask us for local recommendations!)

Friday:

  • 8 – 9 am: Breakfast will be provided
  • 9 – noon: Geospatial data and SSURGO
  • Noon – 1: Lunch will be provided
  • 1 – 4 or 5: Seed / fertilizer trial design and implementation

Registration is now open at EventBrite. (The same material will be presented at both workshops; you only need to choose one.)

Click here to view our lesson plans.

Bring your own laptop (Windows, Mac, or Linux). We’ll be guiding you through installing and using free software on your own system, so that you can take it with you and continue to use it after the workshop completes.

Scholarships to attend these workshops are available:

Because Urbana-Champaign is in the center of a very large state, we understand that travel back and forth to your home each day may be implausible or impossible. We have a limited number of scholarships available to cover up to $250 of your hotel accommodations and food expenses to make your attendance easier.

You can apply here for a hotel and meals scholarship.

Introductory video

If you’re not sure whether the workshop is for you, check out Dr. Lindsay Clark’s introductory video explaining what we’re teaching, who it’s for, and how we’ll teach it.  The first ten minutes of the video give an overview of what we’re doing, and the remainder is a teaching demo that is optional to view, but will give you a preview of what the workshop will be like and what you will learn.