VegSpec Meeting Notes

11-12-24

Attending: Heather Dial, Karl Anderson, Marguerite Dibble, Elizabeth Seyler, Rick Hitchcock, Mikah Pinegar, Lori Metz, John Englert, Victoria Ackroyd, Joshua Beniston

Development:

John: we updated the plant characteristics file. Will send that to Rick this week.
John: State predefined seed mixes. We’re going to query our states to make sure they’re still required. The states will give us those mixes. We might be able to move on this in a month or so. Not a huge lift.
John: States prepare additional info “implementation requirements”--would be a monumental task to include them all in VegSpec, but they could be included in a final report, or i the user is doing something related. Will work on these in January. Not a huge lift.

Design:

John: We have to be 508 compliant, also need to be able to use VegSpec on tablets and phones. Marguerite says GT is addressing these in design.
Ad hoc testing: Elizabeth: The first session (on species selection) went well today with three agents from Maine, Nevada, and Vermont. The session lasted about 45 minutes, and one person got into VegSpec on his own as we talked. Shannon felt the feedback was helpful.
- The second session is this Thu, and the last this Mon; each has 3 to 4 people signed up. For those, Shannon will likely give a brief demo of VegSpec, then let people explore a bit on their own before launching discussion and questions.
Large testing: 1-1 and small groups; facilitator could give a demo, or the tester tried it on their own. Former can get deeper feedback, so using both methods will be best.
- Question: how many NRCS folks can facilitate and how many testers can we have? John: we have 2-3 dozen facilitators. Use the same folks as in summer. We may have another 100, so about 2/3 of those could be available.
- Marguerite: aiming for 50-60 testers is a good goal; 30 facils do 2-3 people each. Karl: last time we had 67 responses, and the bulk were interviews that took about an hour. Replicating that makes sense. Mikah: were there any facils who went above and beyond? Karl: met with all the facils in groups, and each had 3-5 people. Some facils did more; some less. The majority were interviews.
- Marg: we’ll not use async testing again bc feedback showed facils preferred interview testing, and we’re not competing with the growing season now.
- Question: will time of year be problematic? Karl: deadlines all the time, but summer is worse, so winter probably better. John: Jan-Mar is a good time frame, before field season starts.
- Question: what numbers in each testing group? 1. experienced NRCS staff 45%, 2. new agents and filed staff 45%, 3. park staff and partners 10%.
- Experience levels: Karl: most have at least 5 years' experience. Won’t be many brand new people; the #2 group will be in 5-10 year range. Marguerite would like to have some newbies. Karl can help find them. Some of our facilitators could help pull in people with very little experience.
- Question: have the facilitators reach out to people early so we have a chance to tweak the representation? Karl: some facilitators were more engaged than others; response would be uneven. High achievers could help find the newbies. Joshua: I facilitated testing in the summer, and someone on state leadership team assigned testers to participate; they had a range of experience levels. John: do we have a list showing NRCS agents' years and type of experience? Karl: yes, if they completed the form.
- Marg: all this is helpful in guiding us on creating the testing materials.
- Joshua: was very important to have participants operating the tool bc was clear where they got stuck.
- John: we’ll discuss the testing plan and materials in more detail soon? Marg: yes, we’ll draft the testing plan and materials for feedback, then finalize them. Karl: Happy to go through the names of volunteers to see who’s who. Marg: we can put names and faces in the testing outline.
- John: Plan is to launch VegSpec on big scale in fall 2025, and looks like we’re on track for that.

10-29-24

Attending: Heather Dial, Karl Anderson, Shannon Mitchell, Elizabeth Seyler, Rick Hitchcock, Heather Darby, Mikah Pinegar

Shannon: asking for names of people to do ad hoc testing. Ideally: three people with range of experience and who are free with their opinion, and reflective of the average users, not super experienced or specialized.

Karl will send Shannon names/emails, and most are from state offices, though probably also want field offices. Shannon will do the invitations: Start with the larger group (five people) and then narrow it down to three people based on responses. These are the foci: Goals, species, seed bank tabs. Recommend diff folks for diff sessions. So need three groups of five. Shannon will organize the times and people and run through the testing.

Elizabeth: The survey shows users names, staffers names (optional) and a consent confirmation in the survey. We then have a place to enter what was the feature and purpose, along with their initial impression, and what they liked/ didn’t like. Then we ask what users tried to do with the screen and whether it was clear what to do. Then we ask if the screen communicated what was needed to complete the task, and that they “have everything they need” for the page. Users then weigh in on whether there was anything to improve, and anything else we want folks to know.

Shannon: We’ll also ask people add on questions more specific to each feature as we go, John sent us some.

Heather Dial: Sounds good!

Shannon: One group per week, so we’ll complete them over the next three weeks.

Karl: got some feedback on the questions for users and things we need to know for NRCS deliverables for this fiscal year. They came out of a convo among Karl, Lori, and John. What features do we want in VegSpec, e.g., canned mixes? States have different ways of handling variances and waivers. E.g., how would VegSpec handle new species. If many people are using premixed mixes, it would be good to know, vs starting from scratch. Cost data is another variable. Species substitution--some states have complex methods for this; some have lists and what state the user is from.

Heather Dial: when we’re doing user testing on the mix page we could ask: do you use state-defined mixes or do you make your own?

Karl: some states have dozens of mixes they use a lot. It’s handy to have some canned mixes so people know they have plenty of seed on hand.

Shannon: These are cut and dry questions, versus discussion-based questions we’ll use in ad hoc testing. Suggests a poll that goes out to all the volunteers. Usually get good response rates as long as the poll isn’t too long. Be sure to include the option “I don’t know.”

Karl and Heather D: sounds good. Doesn’t take long to get responses. He’ll check in with John about it on Thu.

10-15-24

Attending: Heather Dial, John Englert, Lori Metz, Joshua Beniston, Karl Anderson, Chris Reberg-Horton, Shannon Mitchell, Joshua Beniston, Elizabeth Seyler, Rick Hitchcock, Steven Mirsky

VegSpec Full Testing

Shannon reviews the audience, purpose, and user stories to make sure we’re asking the right questions.
User Stories: Heather: “I want to print out all of the plants for a specific state.” Shannon adds this. Heather feels agents will use it when reviewing plant recommendations.
Karl wonders about asking facilitators questions that are more broad than what we ask the users. There can be reoccurring themes. E.g., “how comfortable were users?” “how quickly were they able to use it or run through it depending on their level of experience?” Shannon: asking people questions in person often gives different/better info than asking via a survey. Karl: it’s a way of making sure people have actual facilitated 1-1 testing. People realize they need to finish their interviews in order to give Karl the overview of people’s experiences.

Next steps:

GT will explore how to collect feedback
Eliz will make testing materials

Ad Hoc Testing

Goal: To ask people more specialized questions one-on-one. Light touch way to check the tool and features to make sure we’re on the right path. Direct feedback without engaging facilitators. Two diff approaches to templates we can use:

Ad Hoc Feature Testing method

Shannon reviews the document she sent us.
Do we want to know which user group they’re from? Track their background and role, as well as experience level. John: Drawing from NRCS testers for this. It would be helpful to get their names in case there are questions we want to ask later on.
John: select a conservation practice, and each page could be a unique feature.
John: what do you need from us? Shannon: two or three pain points or drop-off points people run into. Then whom we could test with; 2-3 people per feature.
Heather Dial: plant selection page with all the filters and the cards themselves could be overwhelming and a pain point.
John: we NRCS leaders need to discuss key things on the development side in next week or so and can share with you next week.

Shannon reviews Shared Components: Ad Hoc Design Testing Template

As they’re changing the design, we’ll use this method to gather feedback from people. They’re open-ended questions on purpose to allow all kinds of topics to come up.
Karl: waivers and variances--add that feature down the road? John: internally at NRCS, we need to discuss that as well as other topics for VegSpec. Shannon: this template could help us discover whether people would use such a feature.
Shannon: let us know if you have any burning questions about the design.

Next Step:

GT will explore what this round of testing will look like in terms of method, timing, etc.
NRCS, Please tell GT what features or design you want us to ask about
GT and Eliz will start creating user-testing materials

10-08-24

Attending: Heather Dial, Lori Metz, Karl Anderson, Shannon Mitchell, Marguerite, Steven Mirsky, Joshua Beniston, Rick Hitchcock, Elizabeth Seyler, Chris Reberg-Horton, Heather Darby

Full Testing: big group

Audience for VegSpec: experienced NRCS agents/staff, new agents and untrained field staff. Heather Dial: add another group of our other land management agencies, partner agencies. Difference between them and NRCS staff will be how land units are defined. But their goal is more toward revegatation or ecological restoration, eg, after a fire (rather than conservation). Might be using VegSpec for targeted seed collection. Operational center vs their field or district staffs – different approaches to do their work. They have limited application of what we’d call a conservation practice.
- Delivering conservation solutions for ag producers and natural resource conservationists. New purpose of VegSpec: “support users in making recommendations in their region: delivering conservation solutions for ag producers and to protect natural resources.”
Testing Purposes: Karl: maybe further down road, but how does VegSpec fit into the flow of their work and into the ecosystem of planning, implementation, and checkout process. Marg and Shannon think it could be included in the testing purposes. Karl: we have evaluations a few years later to see what happened with a practice. Having a recommendation is good, but showing that it was based on good science and document that. We don’t have to address that here, but you’re on the right path.
- We prioritized the test purposes
User stories: how we expect people to get value from the tool. “As a user, I want to be able to…”
Overall value: we added a few
Audience specific needs: we discussed
Supporting considerations: some of these and other topics can be addressed through ad hoc testing
User history preservation: Karl: Add shape files. Rick: our DSTs have that capaciaty. Lori: pulling from data from other layers could make it more robust. Conservation Desktop. Karl: can share what some of the data in Conservation Desktop looks like. It will look something like our integration erosion tool. You grab and field and it gives you options.

Next steps:

Shannon will send us the goals document
We review it
Shannon and Marguerite will update the doc

09-24-24

Demo on testing timeline from Shannon
1. Jan (2nd week tentative)
2. Feb sounds like a good timeline
3. Small groups and A/B testing in October-Mid November would be possible
Areas to target over the next year from John
1. Reports for implementation requirements
2. VegSpec could use a feasibility analysis
3. A few 1 on 1 testing sessions would be useful
4. Note from Victoria about job sheets
Lori note → there are other tools related to vegspec that could be linked here and help a planner out. Soil carbon amendment calculator, could we add a sidebar that shows other related tools
Would be good to run through the whole tool with a few new to vegspec users. John prefers only looking at development side instead of data side
John likes the idea of waiting until Jan/Feb for large scale testing with small scale testing in the interim
Lull after October 1st (beginning of the new fiscal year)
We have NRCS testers until May 2025, we could try to extend if needed
VegSpec testing will include more people since it’s not just cover crops
Lori agrees with delaying, the month of October would be a good time for the short A/B testing
Deadlines that might be an issue
1. Karl will look at program deadlines so we can schedule around some of them

08-06-24

Login problems with Teams
Extending user testing deadline thoughts
1. Revisit on the final day with Karl and decide whether to extend or not. Don’t extend preemptively.

07-23-24

User testing
1. Just emailed CCC managers
  1. They started a week and a half ago
2. 35 responses on the AB testing
  1. Looking for more responses from farmers
3. Emailing with Karl about how things are going
4. Tasting rate is semi low so far
5. Facilitators can fill out an async test as well
6. If facilitators want to send results as they’re going that’s fine as well
7. Anything we can do to help?
  1. Names of submissions would be helpful
8. Karl updates
  1. Karl has met with regional groups
  2. Asked them to encourage reaching out to producers and field agents
  3. Asked for Async testing to go out as an email
NRCS updates
1. Forms that Monica has been working on to add characteristics to the PLANTS DB is ready. How can we load it into the exceptions table
2. Rick says whatever format is easy for them will be fine, he can edit it and merge into the DB
Notes about cover crop selector and seeding rate calculator feeling disjoint
1. After you originally draw a polygon, sharing them to another tool
2. Timeline for making styles coalesce → end of year
Rick updates
1. Polygon tool on the right
2. Added search box styling
3. Added a help button for MLRA
4. Seed mix table has new helper text
5. Added CA disclaimer
  1. 10 sec countdown and then redirect to e veg guide
  2. John asked to say doesn’t yet have data for CA
  3. Lori says make it positive (something like vegspec will have data for California soon!)
6. Clear input changed to clear location and added red border
7. Got rid of clear inputs button for growth reqs
8. Added defaults below vals if changed
9. Goals screen combined riparian and wetland
10. Added button for clear all characteristics
11. Add note (you must select something from each column) in goals tab
12. Moved SSURGO to azure and got it all working
13. Moved all the polygons into a new DB
Next steps to move forward
1. Currently working on free hand polygon
2. Hopefully ready by next meeting

07-09-24

User testing
Rick
1. Would like to add a description about what the slider does
2. Timeline for VegSpec being originally developed and when it went down
3. Feedback
  1. Christine is on the PLANTS team
  2. Said would be nice to have sort on species name. → this already exists
  3. Filtering by group? → You can currently group by plant type. Does plants have family? If family is fabacaae, name it forb/wildflower/legume
  4. Eventually it will be in conservation desktop
  5. Logging
    1. There will be an internal discussion about what events are needed and rick will add them
  6. Could a California click take you to evegguide?
  7. Clear inputs button is confusing
User testing
1. Species selector and seeding rate calculator?

06-25-24

Waiting on facilitator responses to teams
Facilitator meetings → waiting on Karl plans on meeting with facilitators for regions and marking expectations
Need to have a smaller group of folks focused on vegspec before wide group testing
Then get a cross section of facilitators on testing vegspec
Would be good to add a note in the teams channel kepping people up to date
1. Starting with the SRC and initial VegSpec testing
2. Can also make a note about AB testing for users who are not selected for the initial testing
Eauth issue
1. Elizabeth is not able to enter in data for level 2 (id etc.)
2. Elizabeth got to the point when she got a text that should contain instructions but they were missing
Development
1. Finished Shannon’s design suggestions
2. Added descriptions to the conservation practice groups
3. Will probably hear from user testing about moving conservation practice groups
4. Updated the seed mix page to have a new slider with descriptions beneath
5. Seed mix page
  1. Moved 3 species columns into one
  2. Confusion between planned rate and total planned PLS
  3. Do we need full stand rate? → heather finds it helpful
  4. Error in calculating Total planned PLS → should be multiplied with planned wate instead of planned seeds/ft
  5. Change header to Total PLS lbs for purchase
  6. Hide adjustment factor
6. Do we want to serve up datasets as a service to the public
  1. John note → pollinator group interested in pulling in ssurgo data, rainfall data, etc
  2. 11am Friday meeting → open team meeting
  3. John will schedule a meeting with pollinator team

06-11-24

John, Lori, Karl
Rick updates
1. Added SHP icon for importing shape file
2. Going to only use the first soil component
3. Sometimes there are multiple soil components with the same name but different cokeys. What should be done? Need Lori
  1. Lori had say that this is an error with ssurgo, but around 5% of records have this
4. Added potentially suited plants in top left where there is missing data
5. Added all other plants
Design updates
1. Scheduling meeting next week

05-28-24

User testing
1. Looking through questions
2. Get NRCS folks into bucket by discipline, experience using a teams polls
3. Game theory testers don’t have to be in the same focus group
4. John is working on plant materials folks as facilitators folks have busier weeks, either set it out several weeks or have two sessions a week apart
5. Setting a date and time would be done through Elizabeth
6. Soil health division people are more likely to be traveling
7. Scheduling assistant could be done for the facilitators
8. Should we add an hour monthly meeting to discuss user testing? → yes
Rick updates
1. Weather data other than CONUS
2. Added a different source for precip, missing min and max for yearly
3. Updated a table for soil matching that prepopulates options based on selection
4. Can we take a rang if there are multiple depths within a depth category?
  1. Needs more thought
5. Have button for more detailed soil options

05-14-24

Can we delete the vegspec directus vm → can be deleted
Things to import
1. MLRAS
2. Counties
3. Watershed
4. PLANTS
Polygons should be hosted on our end
Ask about NRCS user testing rep
Rick updates
1. NLDAS doesn’t have alaska and the islands
  1. Hawaii has conical volcano topography
  2. Even if you have 15-20 weather stations, they may all be at the same elevation abnds and cause bad data
  3. SCAN sites on big island for placing soild into the right soil moisture bands
  4. E-PHOTOG(?)s may know what to use
  5. Or SRCs
2. Depth
  1. Include only A,B, and E
  2. Sum all the thicknesses
3. Working on Karls shapefile
User testing
1. There is going to be some links on teams,
2. Designating soil health specialists → still in the process
3. Define Karl Anderson as the NRCS rep and add to meetings
4. What is the timeline for testing VegSpec → ready when we are
5. We should define how many people should go into the early user group of vegspec testing
6. They can also be AB testers
7. Then have a second wave
8. Have a survey in teams asking NRCS folks for their main interest
Plant data will be wrapped up in the next month or so
Figure out GameTheory Timeline for design work

04-30-24

In attendance: John Englert, Rick Hitchcock, Mikah Pinegar, Karl Anderson

John likes the new filters update
Heather is in training this week
Unsure if Lori will be able to attend
Rick updates
1. Choose location, choose polygon, it will now be on the output screen
2. Map looks at animation setting, disabling fixed the map
3. Added a clear all filters option
4. Added a clear filters for category
5. Added info icon
6. Past couple weeks mostly been working on DB changes
7. SSURGO is imported for hawaii, alaska, islands
8. How often is SSURGO updated, Lauri said maybe several times a year
  1. Updates are usually adding features and not changing values
  2. Adding in new datasets, etc
  3. John and Rick say updating once a year should be fine
  4. Only a quarter of sites have data for corestriction(?)
  5. Should have a workaround maybe by next meeting
  6. Imported about 7 years of weather data for hawaii, alaska, islands
  7. Using PHZ for min temp
  8. Ecological site added to the output page
9. User testing
  1. Got 124 user testers, might get one or two extras
  2. At some point we will want to cut off new people
  3. Hopefully have a facilitator description by the end of the week
  4. Facilitators (12-15)
    1. PMC
    2. Soil health people
    3. Probably another 2-4 weeks as things get set up
    4. Data side, we should get Monica back at some point but most of the data update should be done.

04-26-24

In attendance: John Englert (NRCS natl prog leader for plant materials, VegSpec sponsor/owner) john.englert@usda.gov, Loretta “Laurie” Metz (NRCS natl prog coord in soil health div) ljmetz@arizona.edu, loretta.metz@usda.gov, Karl Anderson (NRCS soil health division, gathered tester names in spreadsheet) karl.anderson@usda.gov, Heather Dial (NRCS, Portland, OR) heather.dial@usda.gov, Elizabeth Seyler, Emily Unglesbee, Steven Mirsky, Mikah Pinegar,

Karl: Overview of 124 NRCS folks across country & backgrounds. (Steven: Are these the users in user testing or the facilitators? Karl: They will be the testers. We need to figure out who will be the key people to facilitate and train the testers, Steven says.)

Mostly agronomists, but some soil conservationists, pasture specialists, biologists, planners
Most have years of experience, but some new ones too
Will make us (Emily & Elizabeth) guest user access to that Teams channel & want to utilize it as a way of contacting and maybe doing surveys as needed there. Easy to tag people by location, specialty, anything for ease of use.
That group is all testers, but anyone with State in their title, those are the folks that train our field staff, so ultimately will be our likely facilitators. A mix of volunteers and assignees to the VegSpec project
VegSpec and then also the individual CC tools that are part of the testing, how will it work?
- Steven: Hope is that some number of folks across the councils (so another 10-15 people) being facilitators, and then a similar number of NRCS folks, and we would do joint training with them. His understanding is that this is a soft testing to get some initial feedback.
- John: I think so. Good to get people in beyond NRCS. Now have 50 diff ways to do things at state level, Excel-based tools, guidance, training. VegSpec is opportunity to put it all under one umbrella, save a lot of time and effort. Improve transferability from one state to another.
- Steven: your best people would undergo a training to be facilitators.
- Mikah has generated a list of requirements for the testers and users.
- Facilitators go through six 1.5-hour training sessions to run testing pods.
- Lori: it would not surprise me if we have trouble pulling facilitators out of the 124 folks, who have just volunteered to be testers. We have 12 regional soil health specialists. Could envision all or some of them as being those facilitators. Amanda manages them, and they can’t say no!
- John: There are some plant material folks on the 124 list that we could also pick out, maybe 4-6 plant materials people. They have more flexibility because not in a field office trying to meet with producers and build conservation plans.
- John: Will start with regional soil health specialists and plant material center folks and if we need more, geographically, then we’ll look more into the group of 124.
- Can we (PSA) put together a list of Facilitator duties and expected time requirements and over what period of time (but not exact dates).
- Karl offers to help Emily and Eliz access the 124 list; he emailed us instructions for how.
Steven: we have a clearer timeline on the CC tools, but less on VegSpec. How hard or soft a rollout are we expecting?
John: Facilitator group would provide initial testing before we have the larger group test it. We don’t have complete data for every part of VegSpec.
Karl: we could ask facilitators to imagine they’re testing it from a different state.
John: What does user testing look like once facilitators are trained?
- Steven: we’ve been exploring different tiers of testing
  - Gold standard = in person, one-on-one testing, watching what they are doing.
  - Remote beta testing = you send out a testing kit, done on their own time.
  - Live beta experience: tool is live and you frame it as a beta release and have a feedback mechanism built in where they can go in and use that.
    - Lori: we had people video themselves as they went through it, and then send the video to us during remote beta testing. Steven likes this idea.
Mikah: presents User Testing Planning doc from DST section of Confluence.
- contains details on potential time requirements and workloads for the Facilitator List we need to send them.
- Highest priority: seeding rate calc, then economics, then VegSpec in stages based on readiness, WCCC testing of Species Selector by the fall.
Questions for NRCS: They will identify facilitators; we will do testing in a sequence and just hand them the tools as they are ready (not self-selecting by testers). Steven: we could train NRCS facilitators at same time we’re training others on WCCC of Species Selector and have NRCS folks engage in the tool nationally. Focus on Seeding Rate Calc sooner based on Amanda’s goals. She wants Species Selector and Seeding Rate Calc to go hand in hand. We have to do user testing on those first.
John: If NRCS are working on CC tools initially, that’s fine.
NRCS Point of contact for user testing is Karl Anderson, karl.anderson@usda.gov

Action Items:

Mikah, Emily & Elizabeth will go through eAuth for USDA Teams
We create & send a document on Facilitator Requirements & Responsibilities to send to NRCS

04-16-24

Created hardiness zone api
Gets historical low range
Add hardiness zone to growth requirements, use lower end of the range
Integration of the other cover crop tools
1. Longer term
2. On the landing page, go to vegspec, or go to cover crop tools for cps 340 practice, or when you go to goals and click 340 it will take you to the cover crop tools
3. Same for seed mix,
4. From home or from goals, you would bypass species or seed mix and come back into the output and get the outputs
Polygon acres not populating properly
1. Click on shows 0, click out shows proper acres
2. Change polygon, acres changes to 0

04-02-24

Next year of funding has been sent to NRCS IT folks
John updates
1. Heather and Monica are OOO
2. Still working through the data side of things, this will be an ongoing thing
3. Do you have the ability to pull a report of all the plant species that don’t have critical characteristics (soils, pH, other basic things necessary)
Rick
1. Added california disclaimer
2. Now shows elevation. Can it be shown in feet? → Rick says yes
3. No filters currently based on elevation but we will in the future for Hawaii
4. Output screen shows conservation practice, soil texture, soil series, and ecological site
5. Need to follow up on precipitation zones
6. Change to precipitation range with average, average 21.5 (17 - 34)
7. Separated farm, field, and tract numbers
8. The ssurgo map now shows soil texture, soil series, and eco site
9. USDA server has data for Alaska and Hawaii, but often goes down. Rick is working on importing their data
10. Add filter for root depth range
11. Made height filter a range
12. Rick needs to look into why it’s not showing why a plant doesn’t match the filters
13. Map now appears on the output screen
14. Making a polygon on the map then clicking next and back is broken for the selector
To do
1. Lori sent soil depth spreadsheet, some SSURGO data will be changed based on
2. Import weather and SSURGO data for islands and Alaska
3. Make hardiness zone API based on lat lng
4. Add links to the cover crop tools to the landing page of vegspec
User testing
1. Starting in may for vegspec
2. We should do a site visit to hawaii for user testing
3. How do we want to go about testing for Seedcalc and Econ?
  1. They can have the addresses but have specific scenarios for them to run through
4. Could do a simultaneous testing of Seedcalc and econ with vegspec
Bringing the cover crop tools into the platform
1. You select cover crop 340, do you get taken to another tool
2. Can we just link to another tool? →
3. Seamless look and feel and common functionality
4. What if selector and seeding rate is integrated into vegspec and then link to econ and ncalc

03-19-24

Monica is ingesting state data
John
1. Will talk to Gerry about adding elevation min and max, precip, and others because Hawaii needs them
Karl
1. Soil depth is in PLANTS database
Rick
1. Thought that SSURGO had soil data for Hawaii
2. US islands includes more than just Hawaii
3. Added development disclaimer
4. Added a home page for general info
5. Disclaimer for California → use your own states tool, not vegspec
6. Location text is all updated
  1. Added farm number, tract number, field number (they should each be their own text box)
  2. Practice number → not needed, can be gotten from the goals tab
  3. Added contract number
7. Added nitrogen fixation as a filter
8. Change soil type field to soil Texture
9. Add soil series→ all SSURGO compnames for a given key if mukind == Complex or Association
10. Add average range of yearly rain, precip min, and max to growth requirements, can we use 10 year average instead of 5 years
11. Make our own API for PHZ using coordinates instead of zip codes, end of calendar year would meet NRCS needs
12. Elevation added to location

03-05-24

John will be late or miss the meeting
Rick
1. Programming error with some data that Monica entered
2. Daily backups should allow for quick reverts
3. Added branding
  1. VegSpec
  2. USDA logo
  3. Can logo be added before the product is hosted by USDA?
  4. Steven note that NRCS is more rigid and may care about it being NRCS branded
  5. Trying to make it more mobile friendly
  6. No menu in ipad size, now hamburger menu
  7. Phone size has no logo
  8. More work to be done on this
  9. Mini maps show up underneath main map on mobile
  10. Lori sent DB of western data (deciduous vs evergreen)
    1. Lori will ponder the issue of 100 meridian example for prairy sage wort being both evergreen and deciduous in South Dakota
    2. How do we get these discrepancies back into plants?
    3. If there is a discrepancy in the leaf retention category in a state, don’t offer that graphic in the tool yet
    4. Graphs stack depending on screen size
  11. Column with percent mix desired, can we add the sum of all percentages
  12. User testing, teams channel
    1. National bulletin, went forward with process to release
    2. In the hopper with NRCS
    3. Has a one year user feedback period, May of this year to May of next year
    4. Created a veg spec suite user feedback teams channel
    5. Thinking this could be the location for sending feedback to the team, could host meetings out of the channel
    6. How would we conduct the user testing and feedback to be conducted?
    7. Next meeting (19th) will be a demo of the user testing for our other tools
    8. Formal vs informal
      1. Feedback button vs formalized testing
      2. Have until May to hammer out the details
      3. Rick added feedback already to the tool
      4. Special email address for feedback?
      5. Have some users do some simple lesson plans as testing?
      6. See if they can sit down with producers and see how the tool works?
  13. Videos
    1. No one knows that they needed to have videos complete yet, we may be the only team to have them
Monica
1. Working through NRI data that Lori sent, about half way through
2. Working on data issues
3. Plugging along

05-16-23

Still waiting on plants database
Heather and Laurie met to look at plant characteristics
Created NRCS tasks list in teams. More items can be added if needed from NRCS
Rick updates
1. Downloaded SSURGO database
2. Gets PH range for field
3. Gets average yearly rainfall from weather API
4. Goals are filtered based on PH and precip
5. Group by
  1. Common name
  2. Scientific name
  3. Flower color
  4. Duration
John plants characteristics excel sheet updates
1. Probably won't use the spreadsheet that was created from discipline leaders
2. Show a hover etc with extra info from B column
3. C column has the options for drop down etc
4. Items with G will go on goals page
5. Items with S will go on species page
6. Items with Details Page will be shown under each species in the card
7. Items with DELETE should not show up on the front end
Questions
1. Are there some states that have not made and data sheets? -> some states may have very minimalistic sheets -> just need what plants are allowed and what MLRAs exist and then use the PLANTs characteristics
2. Some harmonization ahead of time? -> need to get all the state data first before deciding
3. need to be able to handle conflicts between state info and PLANTs info

05-04-23 Design session

Overview

Home screen is default info from the old tool
Location screen has site name, location, user name, project location
Shows map insets of MLRA, watershed, county on the right
Goals tab shows appropriate goals based on MLRA
Lets you narrow down plants based on interest and conservation practice
Species tab shows you all the species based on your filters

Comments from John

Is there a way to draw a polygon -> yes
Can polygon calculate area -> yes, in acres
Can we add a project size up at the top -> polygon area populates that box
If we cross a soil line, how do we deal with that? Predominant soils? → needs more thought
No states are using eco regions in their planning, still MLRAs
Will there be significant variation based on soil types that would make one sub field not work for specific crops? Probably not
Ecological site descriptions not mature enough to use in tool?
Old doc might help with how to handle soil types
Switching from loamy fine sand to loamy coarse sand would not make a big difference in which crops are available
Page 148 of functional requirements doc 3.6.5 has info about how to map soil texture to plants
Polygon will pull in ssurgo and climate data
Need to pull out soil texture from ssurgo and push it through a mapping to plant characteristics
If the farmer has a soil test they can override the ph range etc, then filter plants that the soil ph does not satisfy
Do we need an additional site data and conditions tab where the user can provide overrides for things? -> yes -> put it below the site name etc have soil type info, weather info etc for the user to override if needed before going to goals. then remove those as filters from goals tab
Eventually add purpose, after choosing interest, and conservation practice. Data not ready yet
Add extra text after each interest -> John and team will develop
508 planning -> for next year
Have filters on goal page and then checkbox to show as a filter on the next page?
Seeds per lb is in there mostly for calculating mixes
Make sure precip average for site is within plant range
Primary characteristics on goals page to be filtered, and then the rest on species tab?
Plants characteristics on the cards -> do we need all the characteristics? -> no, lots can be cleaned out -> John and team will make a list to be not shown in the cards
Separate tile/card for each cultivar
Next steps
1. Have button next to each tile to add to crop to list
2. Then have a tab for comparing whatever was selected and adding or removing crops based on comparison
3. Add a text that says "make sure your selected crops satisfy the practices you want to do" related to CRP? -> TBD
4. Then after all comparissons are made and final mix is selected, go to the mix tab

Comments from Laurie

4th tile for ssurgo tile lines -> need to have the polygons, Laurie will send them to rick
Use most dominant soil type? → TBD
http://ssurgoqt.com
Can download polygon and view in ArcGIS
Show texture, slope, micro position?
There's usually an ecological site name even if there's not a description
Don't worry about edit (not sure if this is the right acronym) data for now, maybe v2
Could we have iso precip lines? -> that will be harder, maybe v2
You pull in ecosite name from ssurgo -> maybe not we don't see it in our ssurgo api -> co_ecosite is the column name but can't find it -> in github script
Weighted average of the ph min and max? -> take the absolute min and max, but let user override
Still want an override for soil texture
Add language to tell user that practices will be filtered based on your selected interests
Is hover text 508 compliant?
Make conservation practice a link to conservation standards link
Send directly to the specific conservation practice link
30 year average for precip, 5 year, or min and max average? -> use the average for as long as we have data available
Explain where the weather data is coming from
Duration -> annual vs perennial
Sort plants by (duration, common name, scientific name, plant group, flower color, etc)
CRP identified species list?

Comments from Heather

Can't assume that they can get to the field
Nativity would need to be added to goals page
Can we group or sort by functional group (Legumes, Grasses, etc)
List of cultivars, varieties?

05/02/23

John Updates

John wants to spend 2 hours talking about user flow with Rick → scheduled 2:30 05/04/23
John is getting things together with national bulletin to provide us with the excel sheets for all the states -> 30 day process -> will be moved to teams as they come in
John is looking for a detailee -> could be some things that need to be vetted for each state -> will be handled by john and team -> will figure out the most efficient way to see how things line up after more sheets come in
http://Vegspec.org changes since last week are impressive -> note from john

Rick Updates

Added goals section
Choose the conservation practice
Pick a filter based on the practice -> taken from the spreadsheet from discipline meetings
Filters duplicated on the species screen
Now everything is collapsed by default on the crop cards
CTRL + click opens attribute for all crops
Suggestion from Laurie -> suitability and use, if answer is no can we leave it off -> john says leave for now but we can filter out the no's and if yes only show the heading
Question from john -> filter list of plants based on ssurgo data -> rick says yes but it's not done yet
Does ssurgo have ph range? -> yes
Override for ph if they know their sites ph
Concerned about MLRAs being from 2006 (example doc made in 2014) -> lots of new and removed MLRAs -> need to request data from states and make sure if it's using 2006 MLRA or more recent MLRAs
New 2022 MLRAs have reduced the islands and made each MLRA more course which sometimes causes problems
Is MLRA in 2006 and 2022 the same geographical region -> no
The excel sheet that Gary has is likely a view, lacks all cultivar data

Design questions for next steps, I showed a demo of the selector and seeding rate calculator for discussion

How would someone choose a species -> that will be the next phase → they liked the selector method of choosing species by clicking “add to list” button
Heather, Laurie, and John like the comparison view from the selector for all the chosen crops to compare the ratings and goals. Characteristics for each practice could be compared
After confirming crops in mix you would go into a table view to decide what percent of mix you want for each crop and target seeding rate

General questions/comments about the tool

Biggest challenge for seeding rate -> implementation requirements document needs to be generated at time of using tool, not purchasing seed-> won't know the germ or purity at the time of making the plan
MLRAs are all nested in land resource regions that have specific moisture and will determine seeding rates
Some modifier for planting method, other properties
Will seeding rates be adjusted or only just told -> just tell them a seeding rate and not let them modify -> allow them to modify the percentage of a species in mix
Some adjustments may be made year over year -> ex. recommended crop is not available → go back and adjust plan
Seeds per pound will be default and not edited by the user

03/23/2023

Don't want to use counties to get list of plants that are available to grow. Want to use MLRAs instead
Discussing intersecting MLRA and county to make sure that the county plants are appropriate.
1. Sticking to MLRAs for now
New routes listed on confluence
Directus routes are up and running
Front end has options to add site name, username, project location, then allows user to make polygon of field
Shows MLRA, county, watershed on right dashboard
Use PLANTS DB to populate plant characteristics
Will likely put PLANTS in Directus
Chris is concerned about 5 year averages for precip, may need to use 10, 15, 30 year averages
Grasses vs non grasses for Vegspec instead of types
It would be nice if look and feel is consistent. One unified front end no matter which conservation practice is picked (including CC)
Will need NRCS codes for conservation listed on the front end
1. May have user pick if NRCS and then add jargon if NRCS
Johns expectations -> Vegspec and CC support tools
1. Vegspec should look similar for CC and other conservation practices
2. Show missing data instead of dummy data
3. Year one will likely be missing data for Vegspec
4. CC part should be working by September 1st
5. Data will be handed over continuously even past the 1 year mark (September 1st)
Data will likely be handed over as spreadsheets, we will import into Directus
Biweekly meetings starting April 4 -> Tuesdays 4-5pm