Author(s): Katherine M. Villalta; Sara E. Davila; Anoop Valiya Veettil; Ripendra Awal; Ali Fares

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Abstract: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has ranked Texas 4th in the most agriculturally productive state in the United States (U. S. ), making about $20.2 billion in income as of 2020. However, Texas agriculture contributes up to 0.75% of total GHG emissions in the U. S. (USDA Farm Income Atlas, 2022). Because the agricultural industry must maintain its productivity to support the demand for products for an exponentially growing population, adequate conservation and sustainable practices are necessary to minimize GHG emissions while targeting the maximum yield from crop fields. The USDA has developed a web-based tool, called COMET-Farm, that calculates the amount of full-net GHG balance for present-day management practices and future projections (Eve et al., 2014). Several studies have used COMET-Farm to calculate cover-crop biomass, understand the effect of windbreak systems on carbon sequestration, and develop an organic farm calculator (McClelland et al. 2021; Ziegler et al. 2016; Carlson et al. 2017). The specific objectives of this study are to apply COMET-Farm for: (a) evaluating the impact of different management practices (e. g., tillage type, planting period, fertilizer application rates) on GHG emission and (b) quantifying the spatial variation of GHG emission from different regions (climate and soil type) across Texas.

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Year: 2022