Precision Agriculture Lucas Rios do Amaral Professor FEAGRI/UNICAMP Agronomist, PhD. August 04 th 2015
Conventional agriculture Deal with the entire are as it is homogeneous..
...but it never is. Corn yield
Precision agriculture Different from the average agriculture... PA is a management approach that takes into account spatial the variability within the fields and aims to take advantage of such heterogeneity.
Site-specific management: Precision Agriculture Allows more than one input recommendation for each field: Hibrid and plant population (G1) and (G2) Fertilization standards (A1) and (A2) Pesticides standards (D1) and (D2) D1 G1 D2 A1 G2 x A2
Reduce input needs (pesticides) Increase crop yields Improve product quality Higher operational eficiency Profit increases Fonte: Brodbeck, 2010
When talking about PA in Brazil today: Management of soil correction and soil fertilization via variable-rate application, primarily of lime, gypsum, potassium and phosphorus Based on georeferenced grid sampling Considering only soil fertility
Grid samplings 10 samples/ha 1 sample/1.5 ha
Tonnes/ha Lime application 10 samples/ha 1 sample/1.5 ha
What needs to be done is: Crop management based on detailed and accurate spatial information about soil, plants, terrain, goals, etc... that is, looking for the whole cropping
Main objective: to develop techniques and equipment to assist in the analysis of the production system as a whole, according to the spatial variability of cropping areas, thus, optimizing profits to the growers and reducing environmental impacts Mainly foccusing on sugarcane production
Research efforts: 1. Proximal soil sensing to decrease expends with soil analyses and to guide variable-rate fertilizers application 2. Proximal plant sensing to identify spatial issues and to guide site-specific treatments 3. To develop equipments and methods to allow spatial evaluations about the factors related to sugarcane production 4. Development a practical approach for delineating management zones
Research efforts: 1. Proximal soil sensing to decrease expends with soil analyses and to guide variable-rate fertilizers application 2. Proximal plant sensing to identify spatial issues and to guide site-specific treatments 3. To develop equipments and methods to allow spatial evaluations about the factors related to sugarcane production 4. Development a practical approach for delineating management zones
Soil proximal sensing
Research efforts: 1. Proximal soil sensing to decrease expends with soil analyses and to guide variable-rate fertilizers application 2. Proximal plant sensing to identify spatial issues and to guide site-specific treatments 3. To develop equipments and methods to allow spatial evaluations about the factors related to sugarcane production 4. Development a practical approach for delineating management zones
Plant proximal sensing
Research efforts: 1. Proximal soil sensing to decrease expends with soil analyses and to guide variable-rate fertilizers application 2. Proximal plant sensing to identify spatial issues and to guide site-specific treatments 3. To develop equipments and methods to allow spatial evaluations about the factors related to sugarcane production 4. Development a practical approach for delineating management zones
Precision Agriculture Thank you Lucas Rios do Amaral lucas.amaral@feagri.unicamp.br (19) 3521-1067