Precision Agriculture Lecture Notes PDF

Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences School of Geo and Spatial Sciences Programme: BSc Agriculture CSPP221 – 12 credits Module Name: Introduction into Agronomy LECTURE 4 - Precision Agriculture Study Unit 2 Precision Agriculture Recommended reading material for the Unit Roy, T. & J....

Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences School of Geo and Spatial Sciences Programme: BSc Agriculture CSPP221 – 12 credits Module Name: Introduction into Agronomy LECTURE 4 - Precision Agriculture Study Unit 2 Precision Agriculture Recommended reading material for the Unit Roy, T. & J. George K (2020). Precision farming: A step towards sustainable, climate-smart agriculture. In Global Climate Change: Resilient and Smart Agriculture (pp. 199-220). Springer, Singapore. https://link.springer.com/co ntent/pdf/10.1007%2F978- 981-32-9856-9_10.pdf  Introduction What is Precision Agriculture ❑ Subfield - A smaller portion of a field ❑ It is a farming management concept based on observing, and allows for more precise and accurate measuring and responding to inter and intra-field decision making variability in crops to 1) Reduce waste ❑ Variability - Spatial & temporal 2) Increase profit ❑ Spatial variability is the driving force behind 3) Maintain the quality of the environment Precision Agriculture ❑ Technology - innovative products, tools, ❑ Also referred to as satellite farming or site-specific and processes that are available to crop management (SSCM) farmers to use in the management of their acres e.g. data collection tools, sensors, spatial analysis etc. ❑ It has also been described as site specific farming refers to the ability to collect data and make decisions ❑ Efficiency - management and decision- in smaller areas than an entire field ❑ In the past farmers collected the data and averaged the making efficiency as a result of the use entire field (average tons of grain /ha) with the assumption Precision Agriculture Technology that the entire field had the same value ❑ Currently we have the ability to mark off/identify a small area ❑ Benefits - environmental, economic, of a field or a subfield. management etc. ❑ The five areas of interest in Precision Agriculture include: subfield, variability, technology, efficiency, benefits Introduction… cont ❑Precision agriculture makes use of new technologies combined with collected field information: ▪ To come up with more precise farm management practices e.g. optimum planting density, fertilizer application, pesticide application etc. ▪ To have an accurate yield prediction ▪ To make sure the input application matches the variation in the growing conditions within a field, hence the name site- specific management ❑ The underlying concept in precision agriculture is “doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time and in the right way” Introduction… cont ❑Why precision agriculture ❑ Precision agriculture was necessitated by the fatigue from the green revolution, associated declining yields and the need to reduce the degradation of natural resources. ❑Growers are facing increased input costs e.g. fuel ❑Labour is becoming harder to find and very expensive ❑ Allows farms to reduce labour needs ❑Environmentally friendly by putting inputs precisely where they are needed ❑Generate farm specific data to increase profits Tools and equipment for precision agriculture ❑Global Positioning System (GPS): ▪ Provides continuous position information in real-time and in motion. ▪ Allows soil and crop measurements to be mapped ▪ One can easily return to specific locations to sample or treat those areas ❑Geographic Information Systems (GIS): ▪ Software imports, exports and processes spatially and temporally geographically distributed data. ▪ Allows for automated farm operations Continued…Tools and equipment for precision agriculture ❑Grid sampling: ▪ Field is broken into grids of about 0.5-5 hectares ▪ Allows for precise and accurate decision making  Continued…Tools and equipment for precision agriculture ❑Information or database: ▪ Refers to data/information used in the process of applying precision agriculture ▪ The data can be soil related, crop related, weed related, insect or fungal infestations, crop yield and climate related data ▪ For example-crop yield data is used to create yield maps using data from a combine harvester equipped with a GPS Continued…Tools and equipment for precision agriculture ❑Remote sensors: ▪ They can be aerial or satellite sensors ▪ Purpose is to indicate variations in the colours of the field that corresponds to changes in soil type, crop development, field boundaries, roads, water, etc. ▪ Aerial and satellite imagery can be processed to provide vegetative indices, which reflect the health of the plant ❑Proximate sensors: These sensors can be used to measure soil parameters and crop properties as the sensor attached tractor passes over the field Continued…Tools and equipment for precision agriculture ❑Variable Rate Technology (VRT): ▪ Use of crop and soil variability to precisely apply products using product requirement map ▪ For example, spray booms, with ECU and GPS are used effectively for patch spraying. ❑Computer Hardware and Software: ▪ Mainly for data analysis and making it available in usable formats such as maps, graphs, charts or reports ❑Precision irrigation systems: ▪ Controls the irrigation machines (i.e. flow and pressure) to achieve higher water use efficiency. Steps in precision agriculture ❑There are three basic steps in the implementation of precision agriculture: (1) Identification and assessment of variability (2) Managing the variability (3) Evaluation of the practices Steps in precision agriculture 1) Identification and assessment of variability ❑The field data is geo-located and characterised through: ▪ Grid soil sampling - variability maps are drawn ▪ Crop scouting ▪ Through other advanced tools of precision agriculture Continued…Steps in precision agriculture 2) Management of variability-decision making and implementation stage ❑Variable rate application ▪ Input application maps are plotted and loaded into a computer mounted on a variable-rate input applicator for site-specific input application ❑Yield monitoring and mapping ▪ Essential for making sound management decisions on the effects of managed inputs ❑Quantifying on farm variability ▪ It is advised for a farm to use one or two of the precision agriculture tools at a time and carefully evaluate the results before adding others Continued…Steps in precision agriculture 3) Evaluation of precision farming ❑Economic analysis ❑Environmental assessment ❑Rate of transfer of technology Critical issues to consider before adopting precision agriculture ❑The following questions must be addressed to help determine the potential for precision agriculture: ▪ How much do measured soil and crop characteristics vary? ▪ How much does the variation affect crop yield/or crop quality? ▪ Can the farmer get enough information and the right technologies to profitably manage the variability? Advantages of precision agriculture 1) Economic benefits ▪ Strives for efficient practices ▪ Increases productivity due to the tailor-made management practices ▪ Allows for maximum use of minimum land unit Continued…Advantages of precision agriculture 2) Environmental benefits-protects the environment by reducing the amount of chemicals released into the environment 3)Farm management improvement 4) Record-keeping improvement Possible obstacles to the practice of precision agriculture ❑Farmer perceptions and lack of resources ❑Small farms make it hard and uneconomic to implement precision agriculture ❑Land ownerships, infrastructure and institutional constraints ❑Lack of expertise in precision agriculture ❑Complicated procedures ❑Data availability, quality of the data ❑High costs of machinery and collection of site-specific data ❑Heterogeneity of cropping systems ❑Benefits are not apparent at least in the short term. END