Abstract
A brief account of the present status of Precision Agriculture (PA) in Australia is presented, and areas of opportunity in the grains, sugar and wine industries are identified. In particular, these relate to the use of spatially-distributed experimentation to fine-tune management so as to achieve production efficiencies, reduced risk of environmental impact and enhanced food security, and the management of crop quality through selective harvesting and product streaming. The latter may be an important avenue by which farmers can take a more active role in the off-farm part of agricultural value chains. The important role of grower groups in facilitating PA adoption is also discussed.
Highlights
In September 2012, Precision Agriculture (PA) can no-longer be regarded as ‘new’
The first published yield map derived from a yield monitor and GPS was produced from a canola crop in Germany 22 years ago (HANEKLAUS et al, 1991; SCHNUG et al, 1991); this is the 5th Brazilian PA Conference; whilst the 11th International Conference on PA has just been held in Indianapolis, USA
The particular focus is on grains, winegrape and sugarcane production since these are the industries in which there has been greatest activity in Australia (COOK et al, 2006), PA is practised by Australian growers of a range of other crops including cotton and potatoes and has attracted the interest of the livestock industries (e.g. HANDCOCK et al, 2009; RUIZ-MIRAZO et al, 2011; TROTTER, 2011)
Summary
In September 2012, Precision Agriculture (PA) can no-longer be regarded as ‘new’. The first published yield map derived from a yield monitor and GPS was produced from a canola crop in Germany 22 years ago (HANEKLAUS et al, 1991; SCHNUG et al, 1991); this is the 5th Brazilian PA Conference (the first was held in 2004); whilst the 11th International Conference on PA has just been held in Indianapolis, USA. It is the case that whilst there are several companies pushing the use of cheap remotely sensed imagery with a view to assisting with mid-season N fertilizer decisions, the adoption of this, and especially on-the-go proximal crop sensing, has been low due to the perception that, even when VRA N is profitable, the additional cost of using such technologies over and above that of yield mapping and high resolution soil survey is not justified.
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