EVALUATING COMMERCIAL PRECISION AGRICULTURE SOFTWARE FOR AUTOMATING ON-FARM RESEARCH
Agronomy & Pest Management
Kent Shannon
Natural Resource Engineering Specialist
COLUMBIA
Abstract
As complicated as precision agriculture is, it offers producers the best opportunity for increasing profitability while protecting the environment. The ability to conduct on-farm research is a tool which provides an opportunity for one to succeed in the adoption of precision agriculture technologies. On-farm research is certainly no replacement for the small plot, university trials. But on-farm research can complement small plot research and validate small plot research in a large field environment. It has been known precision agriculture tools such as a yield monitor can be utilized for conducting field-scale research and spatially documenting yield differences across fields or treatments. One aspect of on-farm research not as easy to implement is the design and development of field-scale research plots through software automation. The focus on this study was to evaluate two commercial precision agriculture software packages for the purpose of automating the process of designing strip or block on-farm research trials. Part of the study also evaluated the process on analyzing yield monitor data from three example on-farm research trials. It was concluded commercial precision agriculture software can automate the process of conducting on-farm research by extending the functionality of current software capabilities. A future product of this study will be a guide and online course on the design and analysis of on-farm research trials utilizing commercial precision agriculture software.
Authors: Shannon, D.K.
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Shannon, D.K. Natural Resource Engineering Specialist, University of Missouri Extension, Missouri, 65203