Precision Pays

I was just searching for precision agriculture training and found the TransAtlantic Precision Agriculture Consortium. It doesn’t look like they’re currently offering classes but they do have an educational training module still online.

The presentations on this page cover 15 topics important to precision agriculture. After carefully reviewing these topics, you should have a good appreciation for the techniques, technologies, and principles important to precision agriculture as well as their applications to production agriculture.

The information below is derived from teaching material created by Dr. George Vellidis for APTC 3030 – Principles of Precision Agriculture, a course he teaches at the University of Georgia, and from teaching material developed by Dr. Hermann Auernhammer for precision agriculture courses he teaches at the Technische Universität München.

It looks like more precision equipment is coming to apple and orange growers. You may not want to compare them except when it comes to the equipment you use to grow them though.

Two groups of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute have received a total of $10 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to build automated farming systems. One is for apple growers and one is for orange growers, but both are designed to improve fruit quality and lower production costs.

The projects were funded this fall through the USDA’s new Specialty Crop Research Initiative. The Comprehensive Automation for Specialty Crops (CASC) Program, led by Sanjiv Singh, research professor of robotics, received a four-year, $6 million grant to develop systems for the apple industry. The Integrated Automation for Sustainable Specialty Crop Farming Project, led by Tony Stentz and Herman Herman of the Robotics Institute’s National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), received a three-year, $4 million grant to develop systems for the citrus industry. Both project grants will be matched dollar for dollar by industry, state governments and other funding sources.
Read the rest of this post…

This is the third and final precision farming myth busted by Raj Khosla of Colorado State University. You could call this one the money myth - and the whole basis of Precision Pays.

MYTH 3: Precision farming will not pay for itself

First of all, Khosla points out that “precision farming is not just the addition of new technologies, but is rather an information revolution, made possible by new technologies that result in a higher, more precise farm management system. To this end, precision farming can be applied at with any level of technology and at any field scale.”

Producers that have used precision farming for several years have paid for the initial equipment investment through increased farm profitability and productivity. How long it takes to pay for itself will depend entirely upon how much capital was initially invested and the type and scale of the farming operation.

A recent study from Colorado State University indicated that precision farming practices can result in as much as $71 more return per acre when compared to traditional farming practices. In their study, the researchers used a method of varying N fertilizer that is based on black-and-white aerial photographs combined with the farmer’s past management experience. Other than the time required to obtain a black-and-white aerial photograph (aerial photos are free-of-charge from the Farm Service Agency or the NRCS District Conservationist) and for the farmer to identify the areas on the photograph that were high and low yielding, very little time and money was required to create a prescription nutrient map. Hence, precision farming can and does pay for itself. Like any technological tool, one needs to assess which particular tool or technique would bring about the most benefit. Again, this depends on the type and scale of the operation. A “one-size-fits-all” approach does not fit in with precision farming.

Read all of Khosla’s article “Myths of Precision Farming” here.

Here is the second myth busted by precision farming specialist Raj Khosla with Colorado State University in CSU’s May-July Agronomy Newsletter.

MYTH 2: Precision farming is too difficult to implement

Khosla says it’s not the physical implementation of precision farming that’s difficult, it’s opening one’s mind to change. “There is a steep learning curve with precision farming. But, once in place, precision farming can actually make your farming operation “easier” than it was before adopting it.” Before deciding it is too difficult, he urges farmers to consider the benefits, such as less time in the tractor, lower fuel costs and increased fertilizer-use efficiency.

Every producer knows that the entire field doesn’t yield the same all the way across. There is always that area of the field that just doesn’t yield, no matter how much N and/or water are put on. Agronomists have addressed this and in doing so, have turned traditional wisdom upside down with their unique approach to fertilizer management by viewing each part of the field as a potential investment. Only those areas of the field that are sound investments (i.e., have high productivity potential) receive a high amount of input. In contrast the poor investments (i.e., areas of the field that have a low productivity potential) receive very little, if any input; why invest in something that won’t give you a return? This strategy is known as “site-specific” and has been used widely in conjunction with management zones. The bottom line of this approach is that the total amount of input to be applied to a field is redistributed such that the areas of greatest potential receive the most and visa-versa.

Soil and crop science associate professor Raj Khosla with Colorado State University recently busted a few myths about precision farming in an article for CSU’s Agronomy Newsletter.

MYTH 1: Precision farming is grid sampling

While it is true that grid sampling was among the first few methods that the precision farming community (i.e., early adaptors) used to develop variability maps of crop production fields, precision farming does not rely on or even require grid sampling. What precision farming could do is precisely and accurately: (i) identify variability and its cause, (ii) quantify variability and its scale, (iii) record variability and its location, and (iv) map variability so that it can be managed. Grid soil sampling is only one such technique of quantifying variability; however, there are many other less expensive techniques available.

Currently there are several precision farming tools and techniques of varying input that do not involve grid sampling. These include, but are not limited to, site-specific management zones, remote sensing, apparent soil electrical conductivity measurements, yield mapping, and smart sampling. In fact, many of these methods were developed specifically to replace grid sampling. These methods run the gambit from low-tech and inexpensive to state-of-the-art sensors that can detect the nutrient status of a crop and vary the rate of fertilizer or other input on-the-go.

More myth-busting to come!

Here’s an online university resource site for precision agriculture information. It’s Cornell University. Here’s the link to their current Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.

Precision agriculture technologies offer many exciting opportunities for more profitable and environmentally compatible farming. Since 1997 the Department of Crop and Soil Science at Cornell University has worked to established a multidisciplinary research and extension program to explore applications of this technology for producers in the Northeast

* Crop and Soil Sciences
* Applied Economics and Management
* Animal Science,
* Biological and Environmental Engineering

Specialized farming practices paired with specialized farming technology can mean “special” results for farmers if you ask Robert Klein. Robert is an Extension Cropping Systems Specialist with the University of Nebraska in North Platte. He says when it comes to seeding and planting plots for crop performance evaluation, using GPS-RTK Auto Steering technology with skip-row planting methods can boost yields.

Robert explains that moisture benefits from skip-row planting in corn, for example, optimizes crop performance and results in crops that are less stressed and won’t be delayed. But, he adds skip-row planting can create time-consuming challenges for growers. That is with the old method. Farmers could spend up to two hours in the field flagging routes with a system no more modern than using a measuring tape. But, Robert says, using RTK Auto-Steer technology cuts the skip-row planting process down to minutes.

“We’ve seen in one case as I showed the results, yields that went from 40 bushels per acre to over 80 bushel per acre by using the skip row system,” Robert said.

Plus, he adds, farmers will have perfect rows that make harvesting easier.

“Another example is where a farmer had had 60 bushel on dry land corn using the regular 30-inch row planting,” Robter said. “With plant two, skip two he moved that to 100 bushels per acre. And he said that’s really a nice way to do it. In fact, that farmer says, ‘I think I finally figured out how to plant dry land corn in western Nebraska.’”

I interviewed Robert about his research shows that precision techniques work seamlessly with skip-row farming. You can listen to my interview here:

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Dr. Simon Blackmore says he has his sights set on the future of agriculture. Not many could doubt that after considering the extensive breadth of research and development the world-renowned agriculturist continually applies to his work in precision farming.

Simon was a leading speaker at the 9th International Conference on Precision Agriculture, sharing his expertise on two main fronts: FutureFarm and Unibots.

FutureFarm is a project that’s meant to conceptualize and then fully manifest the European Union’s ideas on the Farm of Tomorrow. As manager of FutureFarm, Simon says precision agriculture techniques are critical to the development of agriculture. He says FutureFarm is researching and conducting real-world tests of how precision agriculture is reshaping farming practices around the world. It’s a project, he says, that considers and studies integration of information systems, real-time management support, implications of biofuels, socio-economic impacts, the development of robotics and more.

Unibots is the brainchild of Simon himself. Simon is the founder and managing director of Unibots Ltd, a company that commercializes academic research in mobile outdoor robots. Robots, not men, make up most of the labor force in Simon’s vision of the future of agriculture. There are many factors, Simon says, that support the need for such a robotic future. He points out that current technology means farming machinery such as combines, sprayers and plows get bigger to increase output. But, Simon says that trend cannot continue. There will be a point where size gets to big to handle.

Instead, Simon says the ag industry needs to focus on developing more intelligent machines that are sensitive to plant needs. He says replacing large manned tractors with multiple, small intelligent machines would offer numerous advantages. The use of robots, he says, can provide opportunities to conduct operations that are not currently possible or that currently cost too much time and money. Robots can be designed to operate on low energy. They can target inputs intelligently. He says they are also cost effective through incremental investment and integrated fleet management - such as implementing longer working hours, increased working rates and intelligent response to weather. For example, he says robots can work through the night. Or, he adds, they can be programmed to stop working during rainfall or high wind, simply waiting to resume work on-site once weather conditions become optimal again.

Simon isn’t dreaming all this up. His company has already developed robots that can intelligently work through the field, such as a cycloid weed hoe with retracting legs to avoid crop damage, notched disc weeding machines, autonomous tractors, remote controlled tractors, autonomous crop scouting with weed recognizing microsprayers and more.

The agriculturist says he is convinced that equipment will continue to become “smarter.” The industry, in his opinion, will continue improving the automatic control of well-defined tasks and automated data gathering. This, he says, will lead to improved data processing into real information. Simon says the possibility for fully autonomous vehicles with sensible behavior is entirely real and the opportunity for development is now. It’s time, he says, to begin designing and building a new, small and smart mechanization system.

You can listen to Simon give an overview of his extensive work here. I have also spoken with Simon on each topic in two separate interviews that will be posted in the near future.

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Students have an opportunity to learn about precision agriculture this summer.

Oklahoma State University-Okmulgee is hosting the “Summer Academy for Advanced Technologies: Precision Agriculture” from June 8 – 13 for Oklahoma students in eighth, ninth and tenth grades. Academy students will explore precision agriculture technologies including the use of GIS (Geographic Information systems), GPS (Global Positioning systems) and their applications in precision agriculture. Students will gain insight to precision agriculture technologies through hands-on exercises using state-of-the-art equipment while experiencing college life on campus and in the classroom. They will also visit graduates on the job and learn first-hand how a college degree can help them realize their career goals. Students will reside in the college dormitories and enjoy entertainment activities during the evenings.

Some of the subject areas are crop, range and soil science; agriculture business and economics; GPS/GIS/remote sensing installation; maintenance and applications; agriculture electronics; and data processing and image analysis.

Here’s where you can get the application form (pdf). Applications are accepted between March 15 and April 1.

Earlier this year I did a post about research being done by USDA-ARS and University of Missouri extension on precision agriculture.

I had a chance to talk with MU extension ag engineer Kent Shannon about their research work and how they are proving that precision really does pay.

Listen to my interview with Kent here.

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(7:30 min mp3)