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"Management system for precision agriculture to increase the efficiency of farming and promote its environmental compatibility" Summary In agriculture, even small-scale site differences lead to great differences in yield and quality. Today, it is technically possible to take such small-scale differences into consideration in precision agriculture. However, as yet there is a lack of generally valid management guidelines applicable throughout the country. These rules are now being developed in a field-oriented research project permitting the farmer to optimally adjust his cultivation techniques to the respective plots in his field. The data required for this purpose are being gathered from various representative cultivated areas in Germany. In addition to the crop requirements, ecologically sensitive areas are also included with respect to more environmentally compatible cultivation techniques. The management guidelines are to be tested as software within the framework of the research project with respect to their agronomical, ecological and economic efficiency in practice. Introduction and Problem Definition The properties and qualities of agricultural soils differ considerably even within a small area. For example, in moraine landscapes, alluvial areas or low mountain ranges great differences can be found within a few metres. These locally varying site properties are additionally influenced to different extents both by natural features such as hollows, slopes or ridges as well as by cultivation-related impacts such as compaction or erosion. In current agricultural practice these site differences are not usually taken into consideration. Farmers adjust soil tillage, sowing, fertilization and plant protection to an average site quality of their field. As a consequence, on plots with a high yield potential this potential is not exploited whereas areas of low fertility are overfertilized. In such cases precision agriculture can significantly increase economic and also ecological efficiency. The Research and Development Project Since January 1999, site-differentiated arable crop production is being studied throughout Germany in a BMBF-funded research project "Management system for precision agriculture to increase the efficiency of farming and promote its environmental compatibility". The central goal is to exploit the arable land more economically according to the principles of good agricultural practice and at the same time to cultivate it in a more environmentally friendly manner. Management of the plots promises higher returns if it is adapted on a small scale to the respective site properties and plant requirements. Fertilizers and pesticides are applied in an economically and ecologically optimal manner thus reducing ecological problems caused by agriculture, such as the leaching of nutrients or water pollution by pesticides, to the technologically possible minimum. Moreover, cultivation measures can pay more specific attention than has previously been the case to ecologically sensitive zones within a plot. The successful implementation and widespread application of precision agriculture also requires the clarification of open questions concerning economic efficiency and interactions between geology, geography, climate and crop growth. These and other issues are to be clarified in the interdisciplinary research project with 22 subprojects involving 17 institutes and industrial companies. Scientific findings and practical experience will be closely interlinked by a continuous exchange between all participants. Only in this way can the research results be successfully introduced into agricultural practice. Goal settings The project's challenge lies in identifying the geological, geographical, climatic and agronomical interactions and in applying guidelines for developing cultivation measures in the field. On this basis, recommendations for precision agriculture will be developed together with those involved in practical agriculture. Attention is focused on the concept that the individual steps such as soil tillage, cultivating the plot, fertilization and plant protection should not be undertaken separately but rather interlinked. This is a necessary prerequisite for precision agriculture and integrated farming. Information on soil characteristics, geology, crops and ecologically sensitive areas necessary for describing the site are gathered by various methods such as remote sensing and simulation models. This also involves identifying suitable methods for deriving measures and thus minimizing the effort currently invested in site description. The spatial data will be entered, administered and further processed in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The cultivation guidelines can then be derived on the basis of this information. These guidelines will be generally valid for cultivation sites in Germany and as a software the management system will support the application of precision agriculture in crop production. In order to exploit this information, the respective geographical position of the tractor has to be known. As a technical aid for this purpose, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is coupled to the GIS. GPS, originally developed for military purposes, is not only used for maritime navigation and passenger traffic but also increasingly in agriculture. The cultivation steps are transmitted from the management system as an application map installed in a computer on board the tractor. This computer continuously compares its own position with the coordinates in the application map. In accordance with the envisaged instructions for the respective site, the computer controls the cultivation equipment and thus, for example, the quantity of fertilizer or pesticides applied, or the intensity of soil tillage. Tomorrow's high-tech tractor will be equipped with GPS, a computer and a controllable implement such as a seeder or a fertilizer spreader. Implements currently available on the market are not always compatible so that solving compatibility problems is a further research priority. The technology of the cultivation implements is, moreover, frequently not oriented towards precision agriculture so that soil tillage tools capable of flexibly varying the working depth and intensity are to be developed in the project. A further research aspect is the development of sensors to determine pesticide requirements. However, the project is focused on the development of crop cultivation measures for precision agriculture which should be capable of being transferred to other sites. Practical experiments are therefore an integral component of the research. From the beginning, four representative farms, three private contractors and a machinecooperative have been integrated in the project in order to achieve practical application. The farms were selected in such a way that they represent different climatic and geographical conditions of German agriculture, from Schleswig-Holstein to Bavaria, from Westphalia to Brandenburg. The guidelines for computer-assisted precision agriculture will be developed and tested in these farms. The selected farms have initial experience in applying satellite navigation. In the second project phase, at least three further farms will be added in order to validate the management system. This extension is not least envisaged in order to ensure transferability to farms in Germany without any experience of precision agriculture. The decisive questions for the farmer are: Is the investment in new technologies and software programs worthwhile? What advantages does precision agriculture provide? Extensive economic cost-benefit analyses will be performed within the framework of the collaborative project in order to obtain reliable information on the economic impacts of the application of additional technology. The management system proven in practice will optimally support the user in his wide range of tasks. In future, the system is intended to administer not only site-specific data but also the documentation of crop, ecological and economic performance. Such documentation will make it easier for farmers to have their environmental compatibility recognized by the authorities and to demonstrate their production quality to their customers. These benefits will also be available to the private contractors as providers of services for the farmers.
Center
for Agricultural Landscape and Land Use Research (ZALF)
Agri Con GmbH, Jahna AGROCOM GmbH & Co. Agrarsystem KG, Bielefeld AGRO-SAT Consulting GmbH, Baasdorf Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft (FAL), Braunschweig, Institut für Betriebstechnik Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft (DLG) e.V., Groß-Umstadt, Fachbereich Landtechnik, Prüfstelle für Landmaschinen geo-konzept GmbH, Adelschlag Institut für Agrartechnik Potsdam-Bornim e.V. (ATB), Potsdam-Bornim, Abteilung Technik im Pflanzenbau Kuratorium für Technik und Bauwesen in der Landwirtschaft (KTBL) e.V., Darmstadt Technische Universität München, Freising-Weihenstephan, Institut für Landtechnik, Lehrstuhl für Pflanzenernährung Universität Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Institut für Landwirtschaftliche Betriebslehre Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Institut für Pflanzenernährung und Bodenkunde, Ökologie-Zentrum der Universität Kiel Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Fachbereich Biologie, Fachgebiet Naturschutz Universität Rostock, Rostock, Institut für Geodäsie und Geoinformatik
Published and translated by: Bundesministerium
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