Historic Management:
COMET-Farm requires users to enter historic management (pre-2000) management before moving on to the baseline management pane:
Entering historic management for all fields prior to moving on to the baseline management. We understand that records may be scarce from this time or maybe the producer did not own the property during this time... unfortunately, we still require some guidance on this historic management. If you do not know, then our best advice is to try your best to estimate that management based on what was typical of the time and area. Extension offices and resource conservation districts may be able to help.
Baseline:
COMET-Farm requires the 22 years of management entered for the baseline unless you modify the end period. We recommend COMET-Farm users, at the very least, have a minimum of 10 years of baseline management. We would not recommend only supplying the last two years of baseline management and back copying to the rest of the baseline management. Even when using the Drag and Drop Crop Rotation feature, there is still an understanding that the user has some idea of crop type and general management occurring on the field during the baseline period.
When users do not have the necessary management for COMET-Farm, we typically recommend using COMET-Planner, which provides regional estimates of emission reductions based on conservation practices applied. For more information on how the data set for COMET-Planner was created, please refer to pages 7-10 in the report.
IF a user does not have the necessary management for COMET-Farm, but still wants the farm-to-field level analysis/estimates this tool provides, we would recommend referring to the USDA-NASS Cropland Dataset to construct the crop rotation, and enlist the help of local resource conservation groups, extension and/or NRCS offices for any historic management records.