"Precision agriculture (PA) is a farming management strategy based on observing, measuring and responding to temporal and spatial variability to improve agricultural production sustainability."
Using technology such as GPS, sensors, and drones to monitor and optimize crop growth and resource management, such as reducing waste and improving efficiency.
Sensor technology: Understanding different types of sensors used in precision farming such as GPS, yield monitors, weather sensors and their applications in crop monitoring and management.
Remote Sensing: Learning about the use of satellite imagery, aerial photography, and other remote sensing techniques for crop monitoring, identification of soil variability, and monitoring the effects of climate change.
Soil Science: Understanding the physical and chemical properties of the soil and how to improve soil fertility, structure, and moisture retention through soil sampling, analysis, and nutrient management.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Understanding the use of spatial data and maps in precision farming for decision making, mapping of land use, and creating maps for crop management.
Agricultural Machinery: Understanding the use of machines such as harvesters, sprayers, and fertilizer spreaders in precision farming for improved crop yields and precision application of inputs.
Crop Science: Understanding the growth cycle of crops and how to optimize inputs at each growth stage commonly analyzed through NDVI analysis.
Data Analytics: Understanding the use of data management systems, statistical analysis, and other software applications for data-driven decision making in precision farming.
Automation and Robotics: Understanding the use of automation and robotics in precision farming for increased efficiency and improved crop management.
Irrigation Management: Understanding precise irrigation methods for water usage control and overall crop health.
Control System Engineering: Understanding the control and monitoring of equipment used in agriculture and in building automation for the monitoring and control of climate control systems.
Resource Management: Understanding how to manage resources such as water, land, energy, and labor through efficient farm management practices.
Agricultural Economics: Understanding the economic aspects and benefits of precision farming, return on investment and demonstrating how to increase profitability while maintaining sustainability within the farm.
Variable rate technology: This practice uses sensors to collect data about soil and crop health, and the information is used to vary the application rates of inputs like fertilizer and herbicides across a field.
GPS-guided machines: Machinery, such as tractors and seeders, guided by GPS, enables farmers to make perfectly straight rows, reduce overlap of inputs, and be more efficient in their planting, spraying, and harvesting.
Drones/UAV/UAS (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle/Unmanned Aircraft System): Drones are used to gather aerial imagery and data of farms. It allows precision in crops mapping, vegetation health analysis, soil analysis, and predicting yield potential.
Soil and plant sensors: Soil and plant sensors are used for nearly real-time monitoring of key indicators of plant health, including moisture levels, temperature, pH, and nutrient content.
Autonomous machinery: Self-driving tractors and other machinery can improve efficiency in farming processes such as planting, tilling, and harvesting.
Data management: Farms are increasingly utilizing data from sensors, drones, and other sources to make better decisions for seeding, fertilizing, and harvesting crops.
Controlled environment agriculture: CEA is a type of indoor farming that helps farmers optimize growing conditions such as temperature, humidity, and light to increase crop yield and quality.
Precision livestock farming: PLF involves the use of sensors and monitoring systems to track the health, wellbeing, and performance of animals on a farm.
Water management systems: Water management systems help farmers irrigate crops more precisely and efficiently, using less water and reducing erosion.
Smart irrigation: Smart irrigation systems use sensors and weather data to irrigate crops when and where they need it, reducing water waste and saving money for farmers.
"The goal of precision agriculture research is to define a decision support system (DSS) for whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources."
"First conceptual work on PA and practical applications go back to the late 1980s."
"Among these many approaches is a phytogeomorphological approach which ties multi-year crop growth stability/characteristics to topological terrain attributes."
"The interest in the phytogeomorphological approach stems from the fact that the geomorphology component typically dictates the hydrology of the farm field."
"The practice of precision agriculture has been enabled by the advent of GPS and GNSS."
"The farmer's and/or researcher's ability to locate their precise position in a field allows for the creation of maps of the spatial variability of as many variables as can be measured."
"These arrays consist of real-time sensors that measure 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 (VRT) including seeders, sprayers, etc. to optimally distribute resources."
"Recent technological advances have enabled the use of real-time sensors directly in the soil, which can wirelessly transmit data without the need for human presence."
"Precision agriculture has also been enabled by unmanned aerial vehicles that are relatively inexpensive and can be operated by novice pilots."
"These agricultural drones can be equipped with multispectral or RGB cameras."
"These multispectral images contain multiple values per pixel in addition to the traditional red, green, blue values such as near-infrared and red-edge spectrum values used to process and analyze vegetative indexes such as NDVI maps."
"These drones are capable of capturing imagery and providing additional geographical references such as elevation, which allows software to perform map algebra functions to build precise topography maps."
"These topographic maps can be used to correlate crop health with topography, the results of which can be used to optimize crop inputs such as water, fertilizer, or chemicals such as herbicides and growth regulators through variable rate applications."
"Precision agriculture (PA) is a farming management strategy based on observing, measuring, and responding to temporal and spatial variability to improve agricultural production sustainability."
"The goal of precision agriculture research is to define a decision support system (DSS) for whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources."
"The practice of precision agriculture has been enabled by the advent of GPS and GNSS."
"These arrays consist of real-time sensors that measure everything from chlorophyll levels to plant water status, along with multispectral imagery."
"Recent technological advances have enabled the use of real-time sensors directly in the soil, which can wirelessly transmit data without the need for human presence."