Lake & Watershed Management • Water Quality Monitoring
Geographic Information Systems • Environmental Design Services
Frequently
Asked Questions -
AEM GIS Data Entry
We
have included hay acres as tillable land on our Tier I sheets. How do
we handle acreage for hay?- If
a farmer normally daily spreads, and uses temporary manure piles only
when conditions do not allow him to spread, should that be entered as
manure storage?
- Cell
F23 shows a date as input instead of the acreage that I input. The cells
in the sheet are not editable, can you repair it on your end?
- There
is no way to enter Hay or Nursery or Other using the Data Entry Screen.
What should I do?
- IMPORTANT: The FIPS codes appear to be incorrect for our county. Corrected FIPS codes for St. Lawrence, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Schuyler, and Seneca Counties
- I can not find the option for changing the security setting in my version of Excel. What should I do?
- I am getting a "read-only" message while trying to add more data to the spreadsheet. What should I do?
- What farm type should I use for a woodlot and/or maple sugar operation?
- The farmer rents his or her land to another party who is raising crops/spreading manure, or doing other agricultural activities on the property. How do I record this information?
- We have Tier I data from ages ago and some of the farms have sold out by now. Do we still include them in on the data entry to show that they were completed before? Or do we leave them out?
- Can we use a program such as MapQuest or Terrain Navigator to create the farm locations maps to send to you?
- Do we locate and number all farms in our county or just farms with Tier I AEM information?
- Should we enter updated information for our farms if we know it rather than using the information that was collected when the Tier I was completed?
- I see you have posted an updated Data Entry spreadsheet on this website. Should I download the latest version?
Corrected FIPS codes for St. Lawrence, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie,
Schuyler, and Seneca Counties
An error was made when sorting the FIPS codes that affects the above mentioned counties. The corrected FIPS codes for these counties are as follows:
SAINT LAWRENCE 089 SARATOGA 091 SCHENECTADY 093 SCHOHARIE 095 SCHUYLER 097 SENECA 099 The software has been corrected. Only St. Lawrence and Schuyler County where affected by the error in the first version of the software. If you have already entered data into the spreadsheet using the program distributed at the training session, continue using that spreadsheet. The FIPS code will be corrected when we ship the data back to you.
If you have not yet started to enter your data, you can download an updated AEM GIs Users Manual and an updated AEM GIs Data Entry Spreadsheet (right click on file link and select "Save Target As . . . ").
I can not find the option for changing the security setting in my
version of Excel. What should I do?
Excel97 does not have the menu option Tools | Macro | Security to set the level of security to medium as described in the Manual addendum (Manual Page ii). You should be able to just open the spreadsheet directly. A security dialogue box will open. Select "Enable macros" and then click OK (see Manual Page 3).
I am getting
a "read-only" message while trying to add more data to the spreadsheet.
What should I do?
The floppy disk is protected as "read-only." In some cases, when you copy the files from the floppy disk to your hard drive, the computer marks these file copies as read-only. When you enter some data and save the spreadsheet with the new file name, this new file may also be read-only. As a result, when you reopen the spreadsheet and try to add some additional data, you get a read-only message.
To fix this problem, go to the directory on your hard drive where the file is saved, right click on the file, select properties, uncheck "read-only," then hit "OK."
If you have new data entered into the spreadsheet and the program won't let you save the spreadsheet with the new data, you can use File | Save As to save another copy of the spreadsheet with a different name. This new file should then contain all of the data you have entered. At this point, close the Excel program, and follow the instructions in the previous paragraph to remove read-only protection from your files. Remember, it is the newly saved file that contains all of the data.
What farm type should I use for a woodlot and/or maple sugar operation?
Select "crop/other" for this type of operation.
The farmer rents his or her land to another party who is raising crops/spreading
manure, or doing other agricultural activities on the property. How do
I record this information?
Since we are attaching management practices to a particular farm as identified by an AEM Farm ID number, you want to avoid duplicate entries for a particular farm. If you have a separate Tier I datasheet for the renter and the farmer, use the combined information to fill out the data entry form for that particular farm ID. So, if the farmer has milkers and the renter grows corn, decide which is the primary farm type (dairy or grains/beans), add the correct animal units for the milkers, and put down the acreage of tillable land.
As an alternative, if you have separate Tier I datasheets for the farmer and the renter, you can locate them both on the map with their own AEM Farm ID number, and enter them both separately into the data entry form.
We have Tier I data from ages ago and some of the farms have sold out
by now. Do we still include them in on the data entry to show that they
were completed before? Or do we leave them out?
In the interest of your time, don't worry about weeding out records at this point. When the data is returned back to your county you can tweak the information to meet your needs. When the data is reviewed at the state level, the age of the AEM Tier 1 Data will be taken into account when making any interpretations.
Can we use a program such as MapQuest or Terrain Navigator to create the
farm locations maps to send to you?
No. We ask that you either send a complete USGS paper quadrangle or a photocopy of a portion of that quadrangle that must include a corner for reference. Do not enlarge or shrink the photocopy and be sure to write the quadrangle name on any photocopies that you submit. While MapQuest and other such programs can make nice maps, the output may not have enough locational reference information for use to easily locate the points when we go to create the master GIs layer.
Do we locate and number all farms in our county or just farms with Tier
I AEM information?
You will only be reimbursed for farms with Tier I data that you enter into the data spreadsheet and submit. At this time, we ask that you only submit locational information (dots on a map) for those farms with completed Tier I datasheets that you also intend to enter into the data spreadsheet.
Should we enter updated information for our farms if we know it rather
than using the information that was collected when the Tier I was completed?
If you know some new information about a farm, such as an increased animal unit number, but have not done a complete new evaluation of that farm (Tier II, etc.), you should enter the original Tier I numbers into the Data Entry spreadsheet. When you get the information back as a GIs layer, you can update it then for your own use if you wish.
I see you have posted an updated Data Entry spreadsheet on this
website. Should I download the latest version?
You do not need the latest version of the spreadsheet unless you are one of the counties mentioned above AND you received your software in Cortland, Malone, or Mount Morris. The revised software was distributed in Ghent.
There is no way to enter Hay or Nursery or Other using the Data Entry Screen. What should I do?
Primary farm types had to be consolidated to minimize the total number of different farm types we are tracking. However, a coding error made it so that the last three farm types could not be selected from the Data Entry Screen (Hay, Nursery/Greenhouse, Crop Other). The updated spreadsheet is now available for download on the main AEM GIs page, or you can right click on the following link and select "Save Target As . . . " latest updated AEM GIs Data Entry Spreadsheet.
If you have already entered data, you can copy those rows into the updated spreadsheet, or if you only have a few of those types of farms, you can simply enter them as something else and then go back and edit the data spreadsheet page.
Cell F23 shows a date as input instead of the acreage that I input. The cells in the sheet are not editable, can you repair it on your end?
Cell F23 was saved with a date formatting set, so that an acreage value erroneously appears as a date rather than a number. The latest version of the spreadsheet does not have that error. However, you can simply leave it as is and we will fix it after we receive the spreadsheet, or you can type the correct answer into a blank cell in the spreadsheet, then cut and paste that answer into F23.
If a farmer normally daily spreads, and uses temporary manure piles only when conditions do not allow him to spread, should that be entered as manure storage?
We do not want you to list temporary storage as manure storage. Only check that the farmer has manure storage if there is some sort of engineered structure in place such as a stacking pad, pit, or tank.
We have included hay acres as tillable land on our Tier I sheets. How do we handle acreage for hay?
If a farmer grows hay as a rotational crop, then it should be included in tillable acres. Permanent hay should be recorded as hay. Do the best you can with what you recorded on your Tier I sheets.
