Britain ripe
Britain ripe
for US-style revolution
Precision farming technology has
more to offer British growers than
ever. Charles Abel reports the
views of a Lincs-based farm
manager who spent 10 weeks
studying the technology
in the US
PRECISION farming has a bright future in British agriculture, offering far more than variable rate applications.
It is set to revolutionise the way farmers collect, handle and use information to help them make the right management decisions, according to Gary Naylor, farm manager at 800ha (2000 acre) Worth Farms, part of the AH Worth Group of companies, which includes potato packer QV Foods.
In 1999 he spent 10 weeks investigating precision farming in the US, meeting over 60 farmers and experts from Washington State to Indiana and Texas to Georgia.
He admits to being a cynic before he went. "I had not spent much time looking at the technology because I wanted to visit with an open mind. But the business had started to adopt ICM techniques and became a LEAF demonstration farm in 1996. We wanted to see if precision farming could take us the next step."
Management decisions
The most striking thing Mr Naylor found in the US was that precision farming went far beyond variable rate treatment. "It is much more about gathering information which can be analysed and used to adjust management decisions."
A good example was the farm in Indiana where a penetrometer had been fitted to a tractor to measure draught requirements across a 650ha (1600 acre) crop. "It showed the tractor was not working to its full potential and that 10% more output could be achieved by using a cultivator 2m wider. That is not variable rate treatment, but it is precision farming. It is getting hold of the facts to support the right management decisions."
Mr Naylor was also intrigued by the way farmers rely on agronomists and contractors to bring precision farming to the farm. "They are not doing it themselves. They rely on technical experts to develop the systems and use the technology to benefit their farms."
Where an agronomist favours the technology up to 25% of the land can be using precision agriculture. Of that only 10% may receive variable rate treatments.
US growers are more ready to embrace technology, Mr Naylor notes. "They have the advantage of a well developed computer industry and are more optimistic about technology delivering benefits."
But the full financial effects of the technology remain unproven, he admits. "Farmers still say, show us the money. To do that the technology developers are creating software to show cost benefits in individual situations."
Once proven Mr Naylor believes uptake will rocket. "With their huge co-operative suppliers it would take a matter of months to call meetings, stage workshops and get the systems implemented. And with the US attitude of working with each other to compete with the rest of the world they have a very great advantage."
US growers already ask whether they can afford not to use the technology, rather than whether it is too expensive, he says.
In North Dakota, for example, the American Crystal sugar company is using precision farming techniques to pinpoint pest and disease problems and nitrogen reserves across 200,000ha (500,000 acres) of beet production. Modified N advice has already delivered up to a 0.5% lift in sugar yield, worth £27/ha ($40/acre) after costs.
Next step will be to commercialise on-the-fly analysis of sugar content. "Quality checks so crop can be segregated according to quality during the harvesting process has huge potential. Imagine the scope for splitting cereals according to quality as the crop is harvested. It is something US researchers are already developing."
At the input level US precision farming is not used to manage small patches of crops, but to create management zones. "Different systems are used to create maps, either of yield, or crop vigour, or most significantly of soil characters using soil conductivity.
"The agronomist then uses that data to create management zones or areas of crop that look as though they will benefit from a certain level of management. Unusual areas are targeted for ground-truthing to find out what is causing the anomaly."
At Worth Farms that approach is already being considered to help target potato variety by maturity class to soil type. "On rented land it is a big help, because we do not know what we are dealing with. But even in apparently uniform fields on the home farm we are finding differences worth exploiting," says Mr Naylor.
Next step may be to use aerial imaging to forecast crop maturity. "If we can get a variability map and then ground-check the different management zones to see what crop maturity really is, we can work out when to desiccate the bulk of the crop and whether other areas should be delayed."
The key to further progress is to build the data archive from which management zone maps can be generated in future, says Mr Naylor. "US precision ag enthusiasts talk about data mining, going through layers of different data to identify trends within fields. Now there is a common standard for data files it is something that makes good sense and we are working towards that here."
Variable rate fertiliser may be adopted when the spreader is replaced, Mr Naylor notes. Variable rate sprays are less likely. "I did not find a single good experience with it in the US, although Texas University was developing an optical sensing system to gauge the size of cotton plants and adjust the rate of growth regulator accordingly. So the potential is there." *
Management zones rather than variable rate treatments are the real potential for precision farming, says Worth Farms manager Gary Naylor. Having spent 10 weeks studying the technology in the US he is convinced it has a major role to play in farm profitability.
PRECISIONPROSPECTS
• More than variable rate.
• Management zones key.
• Ground-truthing vital.
• Agronomist-led.
• Profit maps due soon.
• US ready to embrace rapidly.
Hit PF sites in America
• www.redhensystems.com • www.satshot.comwww.micro-trak.com • www.agleader.com • www.deere.com/greenstar • www.soildoctor.com • www.agrisurf.com • www.precisionag.com • www.sbreb.com • www.positioninc.com • www.hitechag.com • www.vantagepoint.com • www.ermapper.com • www.harvestmaster.com