Case Study: University of Nebraska–Lincoln improves wheat breeding decisions with Arable

Separating the Wheat from the Wheat

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s wheat breeding program needed more reliable, location-specific weather data to evaluate varietal performance across Nebraska’s very different climate zones. With winter wheat trials spanning up to 12 years and increasingly volatile weather making historical and gridded forecasts less useful, the team needed a better way to understand how weather affected breeding decisions. Vendor Arable provided Mark 2 infield weather devices for three research sites.

Arable deployed three Mark 2 devices at UNL’s Eastern, West Central, and Panhandle trial locations, giving researchers granular data on rainfall, temperature, solar radiation, humidity, and crop conditions. The team used Arable’s anchored, historical data and graphing tools to better interpret trial outcomes, identify weather-related issues such as dormancy break and cold-snap damage, and make more confident variety recommendations. While the impact is mainly qualitative, UNL reported better context for trial results, improved decision-making, and a more durable, budget-friendly research tool for long-term breeding work.

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Stephen Baenziger

Wheat Researcher