WHAT IS PRECISION AGRICULTURE?

Precision agriculture, site farming or site specific crop management is a farming management concept that is based on observing, measuring and responding to inter
and intra-field variability in crops. The goal is to define the decision support system for the whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources

Among these many approaches is a phytogeomorphological approach which ties multi-year crop growth stability to topological terrain attributes. The interest in this approach stems from the fact that geomorphology component typically dictates the hydrology of the farm field.

The practise of this system has been enabled by the advent of global positioning system and global navigation satellite system. The farmer’s ability to locate their precise position in a field allows for the creation of maps of the spatial variability of as many measurable variable e.g yield, topography, organic matter content, moisture level, nitrogen level, pH etc. similar data is collected by sensor array mounted on global positioning system equipped combined harvester and other equipment. These array consists of real time sensors that measures everything from chlorophyll levels to plant water status, along with multispectral imagery. This data is used in conjunction with satellite imagery by variable rate technology including seeders, sprayers etc. to optimally distribute resources.

Precision agriculture has also been enabled by unmanned aerial vehicles like DJI phantom which are relatively cheap and can be operated by novice pilots. These agricultural drones can be equipped with hyper spectral cameras to capture many images of the field that can be processed using photogrammetric methods to create orthophotos and maps. Theses drones are capable of capturing several metric points of the land that can later be used to deliver proper water and fertilizer to crops.