What’s New in SnapPlus v.16 / Release Notes

SnapPlus 16 has a number of new features and improvements. This page gives an overview of those changes and you can find more details in Help or at snapplus.wisc.edu. This page is also available within SnapPlus 16 at Help | Reference Docs (N to Z) near the bottom of the list.

New features

•SnapMaps web:

1.Thematic field maps: You can make maps of field variables like soil test P and K values, erosion rates, and many others. See Map a Farm Variable for more information.

2.Customizable field labels: You can use up to two variables to create a customized label for your field, such as field name and acres. See Changing Field Labels for more information.

3.Concentrated flow channel support: See Drawing Concentrated Flow Channels for more information.

4.Better organization of tools and menus.

5.Automatic calculations for distance and slope to perennial water.

6.CAFO spreading maps: Create spreading maps based on 25ft and 100ft strategies and get the spreadable acres for each field. See Spreadable Acres for more information.

7.Option for persistent field data: You can now keep a copy of your SnapMaps data in the cloud, or remove it with the Clear My Web Data button.

•Easy Group Builder: Create groups and Excel reports based on the criteria of your choosing. See Using the Easy Group Builder for more information.

•Blue header panel: When working with a sub-farm or group the header panel will turn blue and mouse over the panel to see which sub-farm or group is selected. For Show All Fields the header panel is Green.

•Short-cut buttons:

1.Pulls up Nutrient Applications by Season table

2.Toggles Cropping Grid View on and off

New Features for Planning with the 2015 Nutrient Management Standard 590

Version 16, like previous versions, follows the 2005 590 NM Standard guidelines. It does have, however, some new features to make planning easier for any planners who need to follow the 2015 590 Standard.

•The Winter Spreading Plan report shows 14-days and 120-days manure production and lists available storage, fields with planned winter applications, and fields with no winter application restrictions.

•Treated manure (liquid and solid) are added as nutrient sources.

•Identification of concentrated flow channels, including unvegetated ephemeral channels, can be done in SnapMaps.

•A Calibration Method section is included in the Spreader table on the Manure production estimator tab.

New Crops

•Hay (1st cut) to Pasture, rotational stocking, grass

•Hay (1st cut) to Pasture, rotational stocking, grass/legume

•Hay (1st cut) to Pasture, rotational stocking, legume more that 30%

•Hay (1st cut) to Pasture, variable stocking, managed continuous

•Hay (1st cut) to Pasture, variable stocking, managed continuous, grass/legume

•Hay (1st cut) to Pasture, variable stocking, managed continuous, legume more than 30%

•Lima bean to radish cover crop

•Peas to radish cover crop

•Snap Beans early plant to radish cover crop

•Sweet Corn early plant (before May 20) to radish cover crop

•Idle Land to radish cover crop

•Winter Rye (grain+straw) to radish cover crop

•Soybeans, aerial seeded rye cover crop

•Wheat spring (grain) to small grain cover

•Wheat spring (grain+straw) to small grain cover

•Winter small grain silage to Corn grain to small grain cover

•Winter small grain silage to Corn silage to small grain cover

•Winter small grain silage to Soybean to small grain cover

•Winter small grain silage to Soybean (grain+straw) to small grain cover

•Winter Rye (grain+straw) to Sorghum-sudangrass

To view the complete list of crops, go to A Guide to Crop Abbreviations

Renamed Crops

•"Corn silage, interseeded rye cover" has been changed to "Corn silage, aerial seeded rye cover" for clarity

Tillage changes

Additions:

Beets, table and Beets table to small grain cover crop added: Fall chisel, disk; Fall chisel, no disk; Spring chisel, disk; Spring chisel, no disk; and Spring field cultivation

Peas added: Fall chisel, no disk

Wheat spring (grain) and (grain+straw) added: Fall field cultivation

Additional double crop tillages: Through SnapPlus v. 15, double crops (two crops planted in one year) have had one tillage choice for both crops, and with a few exceptions (see Corrections section below), both crops used the same tillage operations in the soil loss calculations.  With v. 16, we are introducing combination tillages, where the first crop uses different implements than the second. They are:

•Peas to Soybeans and Peas to Soybeans (grain+straw) added no-till as tillage choice for soybean with the chisel-plowed and field cultivation options for the peas

•Winter Rye (forage) to Corn silage (18 and 30 inch rows), Winter Triticale (forage) to Corn silage (18 and 30 inch rows), Winter Wheat (forage) to Corn silage (18 and 30 inch rows) added a Vertical tillage option and combination tillages where the tillage for the winter forage is no-till, field cultivation or vertical tillage and the tillage for the corn silage is chisel plow, no-till or field cultivation

•Winter Triticale (forage) to Sorghum-sudangrass, Winter wheat (grain+straw) to Sorghum-sudangrass, and Winter wheat (forage) to Sorghum-sudangrass added no-till and disked options prior to the sorghum-sudangrass

Corrections to SnapPlus’ RUSLE2 management templates that may change calculated soil loss:

Sweet corn early plant for CMZ4 harvest date was too late, moved to July 20.

Corrected error in winter wheat grain to sorghum-sudangrass with no-till tillage, had wheat harvested as silage instead of grain.

Corrected planter on sorghum-sudangrass, was using wide row planter.

Corrected harvest date for table beets, was too early,  and limas, was too late.

Changes to Double Crop tillage option names:

From now on, if the tillage in a double crop system differs for the first crop and the second, the tillage for both crops are indicated in the tillage options.  This has resulted in renaming the following tillages:

•Peas to Snap Bean - Fall chisel, no disk option is Fall chisel no disk for peas and Field cultivation prior to the snap bean

•Oat-Pea Forage to Snap Bean – all tillage options have a one-pass (disking) prior to the snap bean

•Peas to Late-Direct Seeded Legume Forage – all tillage options have a one-pass (field cultivation) prior to the alfalfa-seeding.

General fixes

•Fixed a rare bug where snapshots would silently fail and restoring one would lose data.

•GDD Override checkbox is now persistent.

•Hand-entered values for slopes and slope lengths will no longer be overwritten by a new SnapMaps download. The Below Field Slope to Water and Distance to Perennial Water columns will still be overwritten if they are selected for import to SnapPlus.

•Injected manure in seasons with no tillage operation on the field was not always triggering a manure injection operation in RUSLE2, causing an underestimation of erosion. This is now corrected.

•16.3 Update: The RUSLE2 database shipped with previous revisions did not include some new crops and tillages that are in the SnapPlus software. Updated database in 16.3.

•16.2 Update: A certain sequence of uploading, downloading, and reopening SnapPlus could cause some features (e.g. wells) to be lost. 16.2 fixes this.

•16.1 Update: The original (16.0) release of SnapPlus 16 erroneously included last year's values for soils, crops, tillages, and more. 16.1 fixes those problems.

Known issues

•With Windows 10, changing the size of your text, apps, and other items from Display Settings may cause SnapPlus to appear broken at times, especially after resizing the window. Grids and other text may not render correctly. Clicking around from tab to tab within the program, or restarting the program entirely, will solve the issue.

•SnapPlus 16 will not install on Windows XP; it is the last version of SnapPlus that is guaranteed to run on Windows Vista. Microsoft discontinued all support for Windows XP in April 2014, and will do so for Vista in April 2017.