Al Weiss

Al Weiss

  • Contact Information
  • My Story
  • Publications
  • Background
  • Interests

Contact Information

TitleEmeritus - Agricultural Meteorologist
Faculty RankProfessor Emeritus
Address310 South Hardin Hall
3310 Holdrege Street
Lincoln NE
68583–0973

East Campus
Phone
  • office: 402-472-6761
  • fax: 402-472-4915
E-mailaweiss1@unl.edu

 

My Story

Hi, I'm Albert Weiss. I've been on the UNL faculty since 1974, and became a professor emeritus in 2010.

I started my career at UNL at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center in Scottsbluff. For newly two decades, until my retirement in 2010, I taught Crop Growth and Yield Modeling, and Agricultural Climatology. The latter was initially team-taught first with Bill Easterling, then with Steve Hu, and finally by myself on East Campus at UNL. In developing these graduate-level classes, I worked to incorporate the best available knowledge - applying results from my own research, information from recent journals, and from papers presented at professional meetings.

My perspective on simulation modeling deals with the crop as a system. While at UNL, I worked with simulation modeling to study plant development and yield related processes, mainly in winter wheat. Along with others, I also developed a model to simulate plant height in winter wheat.

With the late Eric Kerr, a former plant pathologist at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center, we developed a prediction scheme to determine if it was necessary to spray for a virulent pathogen of sugar beet, Cercospora leaf spot. This system has been in operation for almost 25 years in western Nebraska. This project came about as a result of a sensor that I developed to measure moisture on leaves.

Throughout my career at UNL, I've appreciated the freedom to pursue my own teaching and research interests. Even in retirement, I continue to creatively seek out new ideas to analyze and to write. I am a co-author, along with Thomas R. Sinclair, of a book entitled "Principles of Ecology in Plant Production, 2nd edition" which was published in early 2011.

In the future, I see the incorporation of genomics into crop simulation modeling, and a greater application of crop simulation modeling in explaining phenotypic plasticity, speeding the development of new cultivars, decision-making, and policy studies.

Selected Publications

Irmak, S., D. Mutiibwa, A. Irmak, T.J. Arkebauer, A. Weiss, D.L. Martin, and D.E. Eisenhauer. 2008. On the scaling up leaf stomatal resistance to canopy resistance using photosynthetic photon flux density. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 148:1034-1044Online
Hu Q., A. Weiss, S. Feng and S. Baenziger, 2006. Earlier winter wheat heading dates and warmer spring in the Great Plains of the United States. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 135: 284-290.Online
Hu, Q., A. Weiss, S. Feng, and P.S. Baenziger, 2006: Earlier winter wheat heading dates and warmer spring in the Great Plains of the United States. Agri. Forest Meteorol. 135, 284-290.Online
Streck, N. A., A. Weiss, and P. S. Baenziger 2003. Improving predictions of developmental stages in winter wheat: A Modified Wang and Engel model. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. 115:139-150 .Online
Streck, N.A., Weiss, A. 2003. A generalized vernalization response function for winter wheat. Agronomy Journal. (95):155-159.
Streck, N.A., Weiss, A., Xue, Q., Baenziger, P.S. 2003. Incorporating a chronology response into the prediction of leaf appearance rate in winter wheat. nnals of Botany. 92(2):181-190.Online
Weiss, A. 2003. Introduction (Symposium on Crop Modeling and Genomics) Agronomy J. 95:1-3.
Weiss, A., C. J. Hays, and J. Won 2003. (119-147). Assessing winter wheat responses to climate change scenarios: A simulation study in the U.S. Great Plains. Climate Change: 58:119-147.Online
Moreno-Sotomayor, A., Weiss, A., Paparozzi, E.T., Arkebauer, T.J. 2002. Stability of lead anatomy and light response curves of field grown maize as a function of age and nitrogen stress. Journal of Plant Physiology. 159:819-826.Online
Weiss, A., Hays C.J. 2002. Climate Change and Winter Wheat: What Can We Expect in the Future? Univeristy of Nebraska- Lincoln, Extension.
Weiss, A., Arkebauer, T.J., Walter-Shea E.A. 2001. Predicting albedo in two heliotropic crops. Agricultural Systems. 68:137-150 (Journal Series Number:12767).
Weiss, A., Hays, C.J., Hu, Q., Easterling, W.E. 2001. Incorporating an estimate of bias error in calculating solar irradiance: implications for yield simulations. Agronomy Journal. 93:1321-1326 (Journal Series Number:13293)
Wu, H., Hayes, M., Weiss, A., Hu, Q. 2001. An evaluation of the Standardized Precipitation Index, China-Z Index, and statistical Z-Score. International Journal of Climatology. 21:745-758 (Journal Series Number:13242).
Weiss, A., Van Crowder, L. Bernardi, M. 2000. Communicating agrometeorological information to farming communities. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. 103:185-196 (Journal Series Number:12572).Online
Weiss, A., Van Crowder, L., Bernardi, M. 1999. Communicating agrometeorological information. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Agrometeorology in the 21st Century – Needs and Perspectives, Accra, Ghana. 1-18.Online
Antunes, M.A.H., J.J. Brejda, X. Chen, B.C. Leavitt, E.A. Txvetsinskaya, A. Weiss and T.J. Arkebauer 1998. Team Research: A class project on scaling up from leaf to canopy synthesis. Journal of Natural Resources Life Science Education. 27:49-54.
Easterling, W.E., A. Weiss, C.J. Hays, and L.O. Mearns 1998. Spatial scales of climate information for simulating the effects of climate change on agroecosystem productivity: the case of the U.S. great plains. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. 90:51-63
Weiss A. and D.L. Lukens 1981. Electronic Circuit for Detecing Leaf Wetness and Comparison of Two Sensors. Plant Disease. 65(1):
Weiss A., L.E. Hipps, B.L. Blad, and J. R. Steadman 1980. Comparison of Within-Canopy Microclimate and White Mold Disease (Sclerotinia Sclerotiorum) Development in Dry Edible Beans as Influenced by Canopy Structure and Irrigation. Agricultural Meteorology
Blad B.L., J.R. Steadman, and A. Weiss 1978. Canopy Structure and Irrigation Influence White Mold Disease and Microclimate of Dry Edible Beans. Ecology And Epidemiology. 68:1431-1437.Online

Background

Education

DegreeMajorInstitutionYear Awarded
Doctorate of PhilosophyCornell University1975
Master of ScienceRutgers University1969
Bachelor of ScienceCity College of New York1962

 

SNR Program Areas

  • Applied Climate and Spatial Science

Areas of Interest/Expertise

  • Developing new algorithms and improving existing algorithms for use in the simulation of winter wheat growth
  • Development and yield
  • Crop Simulation Modeling
  • Agricultural Climatology