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The use of GPS and mobile mapping for decision-based precision agriculture


Continue sustainability of natural resources
Production of food, feed, and fiber are dependent on the quantity and quality of soil, plant, water, and air. No matter what agricultural systems are used, without protecting the natural resources, yields will decrease until the point of no return.

The concept that precision agriculture is a system, (Webster: interrelated, interacting, independent elements forming a complex whole), provides a more useful foundation for understanding precision agriculture.

An Agricultural System that can be used for:
  • Land preparation
  • Seeding
  • Chemical application
  • Fertilizer application
  • Crop monitoring
  • Nutrient auditing
  • Soil & leaf testing
  • Pest management
  • Conservation practices; Operation & management
  • Gross margin analysis
Precision agriculture can be used for more than row crops. It can be as effective with specialty crops, hay production, pasture management, animal grazing, and many other not commonly thought of agricultural systems.


An Agricultural System that adapts to the variability in agriculture
  • Spatial - changes across a field.
  • Temporal - changes from season to season and from year to year.
  • Predictive - differences between predictions and actual results.
An Agricultural System with components Like any system, precision agriculture has components. These components add additional clarification to the idea of precision agriculture:

Observation- occurs throughout the year.
  • Soil mapping
  • Weed & pest mapping
  • Decease mapping
  • Crop growth
  • Rainfall
  • And other conditions
Analysis - developing and using Geographic Information System (GIS) to manage multi-layer geospatial information.
  • Maps
  • Photographs
  • Topography
  • Field observations
  • Testing results
  • Climatic data
  • Previous agronomic data
Timely & precise response to fine-scale variation using Variable Rate Technology (VRT)
  • Soil amendments
    • Nutrients (N.P.K, Macro & Micro
    • pH stabilizers
  • Herbicides
  • Pesticides
  • Plant nutrients - top dressing
Assessment - the ability to review all management decisions
  • harvest yield monitoring
  • Return in dollars/acre -vs.- total production cost.
  • One year -vs.- another
An Agricultural System with flexibility
Since precision agriculture's initial acceptance was by larger agricultural producers benefiting from variable rate application and yield monitoring, it is often considered a "tool" for traditional crop production on very large fields. Actually many aspects of precision farming lend themselves to almost any type of agricultural operation and size.

Benefits of Precision Agriculture
  • Increase productivity and net profit
  • Provide better decision making ability
  • Improve soil productivity
  • Improve water quality
  • Improve wildlife habitat
  • Sustain natural resources for generations to come.
Precision Agriculture Summary
Precision agriculture is an agricultural system that has the potential of dramatically changing agriculture in this 21st century. Precision agriculture lends it self to most agricultural applications and can be implemented at whatever levels are required. Precision agriculture is based on information technology, which enables the producer to collect information and data for better decision making. Precision agriculture is a pro-active approach that reduces some of the risk and variables common to agriculture. Precision agriculture is more environmentally sound and is and integral part in sustaining natural resources.


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