Modern technologies get into the agrarian sector, proposing more innovative solutions for agricultural problems. It is possible to call the system of exact agriculture (in English it is called “precision farming”) a new stage in development of IT-agronomy.
Precision farming is an innovative technology of the future. Crops productivity management with the accounting of variability of plants habitat in borders of one single field is the cornerstone of the concept of this kind of agriculture. Implementation of such technologies will allow reacting quickly to change soil nature and create more exact harvest forecast. Rapid response to the changes of soils conditions is the cornerstone of the concept too. Such management strategy allows obtaining more exact data from the fields and developing effective fertilization program.
How does the system of precision farming work?
Information supplements define real needs of the certain field. Further the differentiated processing of crops taking into account these data is carried out and it gives the maximum effect at the minimum fertilizer consumption. Agricultural machinery equipped with the on-board computer and also geographic information systems (GIS), photos from satellites, systems of global positioning is necessary for implementation of precision farming technology.
Implementation of precision farming will have impact on the following directions of agriculture:
- economic (growth of productivity and reduction of expenses give positive economic effect);
- agronomical (increase in level of agrarian production);
- ecological (the negative impact on environment is reduced);
- technical (agrarian business control system is improved ).
Technologies of precision agriculture
If the agrarian complex has financial opportunities, it can use various technical devices to improve precision farming:
- mobile gadgets (tablets, laptops, smartphones, etc.). Having established the special software, landowners will be able quickly to obtain data from the fields;
- GPS navigation will allow managing the combine or the tractor most precisely;
- irrigation system and sensors to measure crops conditions, level of fields humidity in real time;
- robotic agricultural machinery;
- smart technologies to control rational usage of resources.
Advantages of precision farming
Implementation of precision farming in Belarus will allow solving a lot of problems. First, will give the chance to reveal features of soil structure and take its influence on productivity of artificial ecosystem into account.
Secondly, in crop production it will be possible to analyze potential productivity of certain varieties of agricultural plants under certain ecological conditions and their reaction to fertilizers. The positive effect should be also expected in solving some agrometeorological and agrochemical tasks.
The expected results:
- expenses reduction;
- yield and product quality increase;
- the negative impact on the environment will be minimized;
- improvement of cultivated area quality;
- agrarian sector informatization ;
- harvest control;
- creation of different types of field maps with expanded range of visual opportunities;
- monitoring of certain soils for establishing the exact norm of fertilizers.
All participants of agribusiness will have new opportunities. The managing director will be able to control remotely, to do the efficiency analysis of the investments made; the engineer - to trace quickly the location of the equipment and to communicate remotely with machine operators and drivers; the agronomist - to create the plan of fertilization taking into account features of farmlands, considering relief of fields and other factors; the economist - to automate all types of works.
Elements of exact agriculture
Basic elements of exact agriculture are geographical information systems, remote earth sensing, global positioning systems, the differentiated introduction of materials, fields productivity assessment.
Let's consider in detail technologies without which it is impossible to apply precision farming system. For all data integration from various sources the geographic information system is used. It allows collecting storing, to analyzing information and also to visualizing geographical data.
In GIS-projects different types of cards are used:
- maps of soil fertility;
- maps of fields productivity;
- maps of external factors (influence of climatic conditions);
- maps of temporary harvest forecasts
Geoinformation mapping has a lot of opportunities: prompt maps creation, huge arsenal of visualization of information tools, system display of nature changes, cartographic animation and three-dimensional models.
The equipment for precision farming opens new opportunities. For example, parallel driving on the basis of GPS navigation allows agricultural machinery to move both rectilinear and curvilinear that minimizes admissions between shelters. Also harvest sensors which are installed on the combine are used, they define grain humidity from the field unit. The differentiated fertilization system works according to the flow chart created according to agro analyses and productivity maps.
It includes chip-map for external systems data exchange, the software, the onboard COMPUTER with the DGPS receiver, the EGNOS GPS antenna.
Precision farming in agriculture: implementation history
The foundation of precision (exact) farming dates back to the XX century. In 1988 the first experiments using new mobile units for mixing and fertilization started. However during this period GPS navigation systems were not as exact as now. The best results were achieved in the 1990s when scientists continued researches. In 1992 EU countries developed funding plan of perspective projects on automation of agricultural machinery for work acceleration in creation of electronic systems. The first to implement precision farming is Great Britain.
On one of the farms in Safolk county the cartographic productivity analysis was carried out, and fertilizers were applied by AmazoneM-Tronic cars. Usage of these technologies gave fantastic economic effect, and they began to be implemented successfully and in other European countries.
