1. Enhancing Farmers' Indigenous Knowledge Management in Cassava Varietal Trial Using Agro Ecosystem Analysis, Farmers' Drama Group and Animations in Eastern part of Nigeria.

Researchers continue to come up with new varieties but farmer perspectives and preferences are very important factors for new varieties to spread in farmers’ communities. Researcher priorities alone are not enough. A variety may be ‘scientifically pe... C.C. Asiabaka, M.O. Adesope, C.C. Ifeanyi- obi, R.N. Nwakwasi, F. Nnadi, E.C. Matthews- njoku, J. Chikaire

2. 3D Acquisition System Applied to Agronomic Scenes

To enable a better decision making by the farmer in order to optimize the crop management, it is essential to provide a set of information on basic parameters of the crops. These information are numerous and the image processing is increasingly used for disease detection, weed detection or yield estimation. We will focus initially on assessing the yield of a wheat crop in automatic way. This yield is directly related to the number of ears per square meter for which the counting is curren... F. Cointault, P. Gouton, B. Billiot

3. A 3-D Stereovision Simulator for Centrifugal Fertilizer Granule Spreading

... J. Vangeyte, F. Cointault, M. Paindavoine, J. Pieters, B. Hijazi

4. A Case Study Comparing Machine Learning and Vegetation Indices for Assessing Corn Nitrogen Status in an Agricultural Field in Minnesota

Compact hyperspectral sensors compatible with UAV platforms are becoming more readily available. These sensors provide reflectance in narrow spectral bands while covering a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, because of the narrow spectral bands and wide spectral range, hyperspectral data analysis can benefit greatly from data mining and machine learning techniques to leverage its power. In this study, rainfed corn was grown during the 2017 growing season using four nitrogen ... A. Laacouri, T. Nigon, D. Mulla, C. Yang

5. A Comparative Study of Field-Wide Estimation of Soil Moisture Using Compressive Sensing

In precision agriculture, monitoring of soil moisture plays an essential role in correct decision making. In practice, regular mesh installation, or large random deployment of moisture sensors over a large field is not possible due to cost and maintenance prohibitions. Consequently, direct measurement of moisture is possible at only a few points in the field. A value for the moisture may then be estimated for the remaining areas using a variety of algorithms. It is shown that althou... H. Pourshamsaei, A. Nobakhti

6. A Comparison of Plant Temperatures as Measured By Thermal Imaging and Infrared Thermometry

... P. Baresel, B. Mistele, H. Yuncai, U. Schmidhalter, H. Hackl

7. A Comparison of Three-Dimensional Data Acquisition Methods for Phenotyping Applications

Currently Phenotyping is primarily performed using two-dimensional imaging techniques. While this yields interesting data about a plant, a lot of information is lost using regular cameras. Since a plant is three-dimensional, the use of dedicated 3D-imaging sensors provides a much more complete insight into the phenotype of the plant. Different methods for 3D-data acquisition are available, each with their inherent advantages and disadvantages. These have to be addressed depending on the parti... O. Scholz, F. Uhrmann, S. Gerth, K. Pieger, J. Claußen

8. A Comprehensive Stress Index for Evaluating Plant Water Status in Almond Trees

This study evaluated a comprehensive plant water stress index that integrates the canopy temperature and the environmental conditions that can assist in irrigation management. This index—Comprehensive Stress Index (CSI)—is based on the reformulation of the leaf energy balance equation. Specifically, CSI is the ratio of the temperature difference between a dry leaf (i.e. a leaf with a broken stem) and a live leaf (on the same tree) [i.e. Tdry-Tleaf] and the difference between the v... K. Drechsler, I. Kisekka, S. Upadhyaya

9. A Gap Analysis of Broadband Connectivity and Precision Agriculture Adoption in Southwestern Ontario, Canada

In Southwestern Ontario (Canada), the availability of broadband, or high-speed internet, likely influences the adoption of precision agriculture (PA) technologies and functions of these technologies which enable real-time data sharing between the field and the digital cloud, and back again to the farm-level user. This paper examines the reasons why PA technologies are, or are not adopted, and adoption in relation to varying levels of broadband access. Broadband access is defined here with var... H. Hambly, M. Chowdury

10. A High-Reliability Database-Supported Modular Precision Irrigation System

Title of Abstract:          A High-Reliability Database-Supported Modular Precision Irrigation System Authors of Abstract:     N. Kamel1, S. Sharaf1, A. El-Shafei... S. Sharaf, A. Elshafie, N.N. Kamel, D.A. Yousef

11. A Long-Term Precision Agriculture System Maintains Profitability

After two decades of availability of grain yield-mapping technology, long-term trends in field-scale profitability for precision agriculture (PA) systems and conservation practices can now be assessed. Field-scale profitability of a conventional or ‘business-as-usual’ system with an annual corn (Zea mays L.)-soybean (Glycine max [L.]) rotation and annual tillage was assessed for 11 years on a 36-ha field in central Missouri during 1993 to 2003. Following this, a ‘precision a... M.A. Yost, N.R. Kitchen, K.A. Sudduth, S.T. Drummond, R.E. Massey

12. A Low Cost, Modular Robotics Tool Carrier for Precision Agriculture Research

Current research within agricultural crop production focus on using autonomous robot technology to optimize the production efficiency, enhance sustainability and minimize tedious, monotonous and wearing tasks. But progress is slow pa... A. Bøgild, S.H. Nielsen, N.J. Jacobsen, C.L. Jaeger-hansen, R.N. Jørgensen, K. Jensen, O.J. Jørgensen

13. A Method for Combining Spatial and Hyperspectral Information for Delineation of Homogenous Management Zones

Hyperspectral (HS) remote sensing is a constantly developing field. New remote sensing applications of different fields constantly appear. The possibility of acquisition information about an object without physical contact is spanning new opportunities in many fields and for precision agricultural in particular. These opportunities demand constant improvement and development of new analysis approaches and algorith... Y. Cohen, V. Alchanatis, O. Levi, S. Cohen

14. A Model to Analyze “As-Applied” Reports of Variable Rate Applications

Variable rate technology enables users to access crop inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, based on site specific information. This technology combines a variable rate control system, positioning system and GIS software to enable variable rate application. During operation some of these systems report information (“as-applied” files) about target rates and actual applied rates on georeferenced points along the ... A.F. Colaço, H.J. Rosa, J.P. Molin

15. A New Approach to Yield Map Creation

    One of the barriers to using yield maps as a data layer in precision agriculture activities is that the maps being generated to day are not very accurate in representing what really happened in field.  Numerous data errors in the way the data is collected, poor calibration habits on the part of opera... C. Romier, M. Hyrien, D. Lamker

16. A New Sensing System for Immediate and Direct Measurements of Soil Nitrate

In-season management of nitrogen is a critical component in the drive to increase the nitrogen use efficiency of commercial crop production. Increasing nitrogen use efficiency itself has become a prominent issue due to both economic and environmental/regulatory drivers over the last decade.   Solum, Inc (Mountain View, CA) has developed a new sensing technology to enable the immediate and direct measurement of soil nitrate. This allows rapid and economical so... M. Preiner

17. A New Version of the Nitrogen Trading Tool (NTT) To Assess Nitrogen Management across the USA

A recent study from the USDA Economic Research Service (September 2011) reported that about one-third of U.S. cropland was found to meet the requirements for ... J.A. Delgado, J.C. Ascough ii

18. A Non-Destructive Method of Estimating Red Tip Disease in Pineapple

Red Tip disease typically reduces pineapple yields by up to 50%. At present, the causal agent of Red Tip disease is still unconfirmed. B... F. Abu kassim, G. Vadamalai, A. Mohd hanif, S.K. Balasundram

19. A Pilot Study on Monitoring Drinking Behavior in Bucket Fed Dairy Calves Using an Ear-Attached Tri-Axial Accelerometer

Accelerometers support the farmer with collecting information about animal behavior and thus allow a reduction in visual observation time. The milk intake of calves fed by teat-buckets has not been monitored automatically on commercial farms so far, although it is crucial for the calves’ development. This pilot study was based on bucket-fed dairy calves and intended (1) to evaluate the technical feasibility of using an ear-attached accelerometer (SMARTBOW, Smartbow GmbH, Weibern, Austri... L. Roland, L. Lidauer, G. Sattlecker, F. Kickinger, W. Auer, V. Sturm, D. Efrosinin, M. Drillich, M. Iwersen, A. Berger

20. A Precision Management Strategy on Soil Mapping

With the experience of field mapping practice during the last decade, a simple conclusion of four-level-field-management strategy was summarized. Level 1 was to describe the spatio-temporal variability of the fields, such as soil mapping and yield/quality mapping, and then to recognize the evidence in the field. Level 2 was to understand why the variability came out with help of farmers’ experience, such as mushing up of the date, memorizing the work history and the environmental condit... S. Shibusawa

21. A Remote Interface for a Human-Robot Cooperative Vineyard Sprayer

... Y. Edan, R. Berenstein, I. Ben-halevi

22. A Scheme of Precision Carbon Farming for Paddy

Paddy soil used to have a low level of organic matters, generally below 3 %, because of its concerns of producing harmful materials to the crop gro... Y. li, M. kodaira, T. oomori, B. siti noor aliah, S. Shibusawa

23. A Statistical and an Agronomic Approach for Definition of Management Zones in Corn and Soybean

The use of productivity level management zones (MZ) has demonstrated good potential for the site-specific management of crop inputs in traditional row crops. The objectives of this research were to analyze the process of defining MZs and develop methods to evaluate the quality of MZ maps. Two approaches were used to select the layers to be used in the MZ definition: 1) Statistical Approach (SA_MZ) and 2) Agronomic Approach (AA_MZ). The difference is that in the AA_MZ approach all non stable v... C.L. Bazzi, E.G. Souza, R. Khosla, R.M. Reich

24. A Tool for Monitoring Genetic Selection Differentials in Dairy Herds in Canada

A software tool was developed to allow a dairy producer and/or agricultural advisor to monitor the genetic selection differentials (GSD) that a dairy farm is making. The objectives of this study were (i) to monitor GSD in individual farms, over years, so that producers can be advised as to whether or not they are achieving their selection objectives (and hence optimizing productivity and profitability); (ii) the development of a prototype software tool and visualization model to assist produc... B.A. Hagan, R.I. Cue

25. Accelerating Precision Agriculture to Decision Agriculture: Enabling Digital Agriculture in Australia

For more than two decades, the success of Australia’s agricultural and rural sectors has been supported by the work of the Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs). The RDCs are funded by industry and government. For the first time, all fifteen of Australia’s RDC’s have joined forces with the Australian government to design a solution for the use of big data in Australian agriculture. This is the first known example of a nationwide approach for the digital transfor... J. Trindall, R. Rainbow

26. Active and Passive Sensor Comparison for Variable Rate Nitrogen Determination and Accuracy in Irrigated Corn

The objectives of this research were to (i) compare active and passive crop canopy sensors’ sidedress variable rate nitrogen (VRN) derived from different vegetation indices (VI) and (ii) assess VRN recommendation accuracy of active and passive sensors as compared to the agronomic optimum N rate (AONR) in irrigated corn. This study is comprised of six site-years (SY), conducted in 2015, 2016 and 2017 on different soil types (silt loam, loam and sandy loam) and with a range of preplant-ap... L. Bastos, R.B. Ferguson

27. Active Canopy Sensor-Based Precision Rice Management Strategy for Improving Grain Yield, Nitrogen and Water Use

The objective of this research was to develop an active crop sensor-based precision rice (Oryza sativa L.) management (PRM) strategy to improve rice yield, N and water use efficiencies and evaluate it against farmer’s rice management in Northeast China. Two field experiments were conducted from 2011 to 2013 in Jiansanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, China, involving four treatments and two varieties (Kongyu 131 and Longjing 21). The results indicated that PRM system significantly increased... J. Lu, H. Wang, Y. Miao

28. Active Canopy Sensors for the Detection of Non-Responsive Areas to Nitrogen Application in Wheat

Active canopy sensors offer accurate measurements of crop growth status that have been used in real time to estimate nitrogen (N) requirements. NDVI can be used to determine the absolute amount of fertilizer requirement, or simply to distribute within the field an average rate defined by decision models using other diagnostics. The objective of this work was to evaluate the capacity of active canopy sensors to determine yield and N application requirements within a site at jointing stage (Fee... A.G. Berger, E. Hoffman, N. Fassana, F. Alfonso

29. Active Sensor Performance – Dependence to Measuring Height, Light Intensity and Device Temperature

For land use management, agriculture, and crop management spectral remote sensing is widely used. Ground-based sensing is particularly advantageous allowing to directly link on-site spectral information with agronomic algorithms. Sensors are nowadays most frequently used in site-specific oriented applications of fertilizers, but similarly site-specific applications of growth regulators, herbicides and pesticides become more often adopted. Generally little is known about the effects ... B. Mistele, U. Schmidhalter, S. Kipp

30. ADAPT: A Rosetta Stone for Agricultural Data

Modern farming requires increasing amounts of data exchange among hardware and software systems. Precision agriculture technologies were meant to enable growers to have information at their fingertips to keep accurate farm records (and calculate production costs), improve decision-making and promote effi­cien­cies in crop management, enable greater traceability, and so forth. The attainment of these goals has been limited by the plethora of proprietary, incompatible data formats among... D.D. Danford, K.J. Nelson, S.T. Rhea, M.W. Stelford, R. Ferreyra, J.A. Wilson, B.E. Craker

31. Adaptive Control of Capillary Water Flow Under Modified Subsurface Irrigation Based on a SPAC Model

Soil moisture in a rhizosphere of a tomato is controlled adaptively based on a simple soil-plant-atmosphere continuum (SPAC) model. The water flow from a soil through a plant to the atmosphere is governed by the analogous rule of the SPAC model. In our experiment, we assume that plant transpiration is only affected by the water-potential of air when the soil m... M. Ohaba, M.B. zainal abidin, Q. Li, S. Shibusawa, M. Kodaira, K. Osato

32. Adaptive Sensor Fusion Method for Agricultural and Environmental Monitoring

Environmental and agricultural monitoring involves continuous observation in areas such as grains crop, in order to evaluate changes in the environment. Wireless Sensor Networks may be employed in th... C.E. Cugnasca, M.A. Dota

33. Adoption and Non-Adoption of Precision Farming Technologies by Cotton Farmers

  We used the 2009 Southern Cotton Precision Farming Survey data collected from farmers in twelve U.S. states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia) to identify reasons on why some adopt and others do not adopt precision farming techniques. Those farmers who provided the cost as the reason for non-adoption are farmers characterized by lower educatio... A.K. Mishra, M. Pandit, K.P. Paudel, E. Segarra

34. Adoption and Tendencies of Precision Agriculture Technologies in the Tocantins State, Brazil

Although precision agriculture is widely used throughout Brazilian crop production, it has not been used to increase the efficiency use of agricultural inputs. Besides, technologies available have not bee... L. Bortolon, E. Borghi, A. Luchiari junior, E.S. Bortolon, A.A. Freitas, R.Y. Inamasu, J.C. Avanzi

35. Adoption of Precision Agriculture Technology: A Duration Analysis

Precision agriculture technologies have been available for adoption and utilization at the farm level for several decades. Some technologies have been readily adopted while others were adopted more slowly. An analysis of 621 Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA) farmer members provided insights regarding adoption, upgrading, and abandonment of technology. The likelihood that farms adopt specific technology given that other technology had been adop... T.W. Griffin, E.A. Yeager

36. Affordable Multi-Rotor Remote Sensing Platform for Applications In Precision Horticulture.

Satellite and aerial imaging technologies have been explored for a long time as an extremely useful source of collecting cost-effective data for agricultural applications. In spite of the availability of such technologies, very few growers are using the tech... R. Ehsani, S. Sankaran, J.M. Maja, J.C. Neto

37. AgDataBox – API (Application Programming Interface)

E-agricultural is an emerging field focusing in the enhancement of agriculture and rural development through improve in information and data processing. The data-intensive characteristic of these domains is evidenced by the great variety of data to be processed and analyzed. Countrywide estimates rely on maps, spectral images from satellites, and tables with rows for states, regions, municipalities, or farmers. Precision agriculture (PA) relies on maps of within field variability of soil and ... C.L. Bazzi, E.P. Jasse, E.G. Souza, P.S. Magalhães, G.K. Michelon, K. Schenatto, A. Gavioli

38. Aggregating Precision Agriculture Data Across Regions

The analysis of precision agricultural data has largely focused on one field at a time and to a lesser extent to one individual farm. Recent developments have allowed those with access to data from across large regions to realize additional value by pooled community analysis of precision agriculture data.  Pool data analysis has provided greater value to individual farms than they would have gained by only using their own farm-level data. Statistical, economic, and risk methodologie... T. Griffin

39. Agricultural Remote Sensing Information for Farmers in Germany

The European Copernicus program delivers optical and radar satellite imagery at a high temporal frequency and at a ground resolution of 10m worldwide with an open data policy. Since July 2017 the satellite constellation of the Sentinel-1 and -2 satellites is fully operational, allowing e.g. coverage of Germany every 1-2 days by radar and every 2-3 days with optical sensors. This huge data source contains a variety of valuable input information for farmers to monitor the in-field variability a... H. Lilienthal, H. Gerighausen, E. Schnug

40. Agricultural Robots: Drivers, Barriers and Opportunities for Adoption

In the next decades, agriculture is to feed a rapidly growing population, while tackling changes in climate, overexploited resources, changes in markets and competition with other sectors. Agriculture is, therefore, expected to move towards a more sustainable intensification. In this context, robotic technologies are aimed to reduce labor, using fewer resources and improving agricultural productivity. There is growing demand and awareness of the potential use of such technologies in the farmi... K. Rial-lovera

41. Agronōmics: Eliciting Food Security from Big Data, Big Ideas and Small Farms

Most farmers globally could make their farms more productive; few are limited by ambient availabilities of light energy and water. Similarly the sustainability of farming practices offers large scope for innovation and improvement. However, conventional ‘top-down’ Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKISs) are commonly failing to maintain significant progress in either productivity or sustainability because multifarious and complex agronomic interactions thwart accurate... R. Sylvester-bradley, D. Kindred, P. Berry

42. AgronomoBot: A Smart Answering Chatbot Applied to Agricultural Sensor Networks

Mobile devices advanced adoption has fostered the creation of various messaging applications providing convenience and practicality in general communication. In this sense, new technologies arise bringing automatic, continuous and intelligent features for communication through messaging applications by using web robots, also called Chatbots. Those are computer programs that simulate a real conversation between humans to answer questions or do tasks, giving the impression that the person is ta... G.M. Mostaço, L.B. Campos, C.E. Cugnasca, I.R. Souza

43. Akkerweb: A Platform for Precision Farming Data, Science, and Practice

The concept of precision farming (PF) was formulated about 40 years ago and the scientific knowledge for some applications of PF in The Netherlands has been available for almost 20 years. Also, in many cases equipment is available to implement PF in practice. In spite of all this PF uptake is still limited. An important reason for the limited uptake of PF is in the challenges that must be overcome to let data flow from sensors to data storage, to combine data sources and process them into rec... F.K. Van evert, T. Been, J.A. Booij, C. Kempenaar, G.J. Kessel, L.P. Molendijk

44. AMMO Ag: Agricultural Marketing & Merchandising Optimizer

EHedger provides an integrated risk management solution for farm operations utilizing our proprietary AMMO platform combined with proven hedging strategies, first-hand market insight, effective trade execution and farming expertise. AMMO software enables real-time analysis of crop/livestock production. Farmers can set profit margins, evaluate variable profit scenarios, understand production costs and risks, and create sustainable marketing programs to maximize their... C. Krol, D. Dempsey

45. An Active Thermography Method for Immature Citrus Fruit Detection

Fast and accurate methods of immature citrus fruit detection are critical to building early yield mapping systems. Previously, machine vision methods based on color images were used in many studies for citrus fruit detection. Despite the high resolutions of most color images, problems such as the color similarity between fruit and leaves, and various illumination conditions prevented those studies from achieving high accuracies. This project explored a novel method for immature citrus fruit d... H. Gan, W.S. Lee, V. Alchanatis, A. Abd-elrahman

46. An Approach to Making Non-Smell Composting System : Case Study in Fuchu

The project to form ... R. Fusamura, S. Shibusawa, M. Kodaira

47. An Approach to Selection of Soil Water Content Monitoring Locations within Fields

Increased input efficiency is one of the main challenges for a modern agricultural enterprise. One way to optimize production cycles is to rationalize crop residue utilization. In conditions where there is limited use of mineral fertilizers and without applying manure, plant residues may be used as an organic fertilizer ... V.I. Adamchuk, L. Pan, R.B. Ferguson

48. An Automatic Control Method Research for 9YG-1.2 Large Round Baler

When manual or semi-automatic round baler working, the tractor driver have to frequently manual the machine according to the bale process at the same time of driving. The driver easily feel fatigue in this operating mode for a long time, so the consistency of the bale’s density can not be guaranteed. And there may be wrong operation. In this article, we use the model 9YG-1.2 large round baler as a research prototype. We study the information collection and processing of the baler’... J. Dong, Z. Meng, Y. Cong, A. Zhang, W. Fu, R. Pan, Q. Yang, Y. Shang

49. An Economic Feasibility Assessment for Adoption of Autonomous Field Machinery in Row Crop Production

A multi-faceted whole farm planning model was developed to compare conventional and autonomous machinery for grain crop production.  Results suggested that autonomous machinery could be an economically viable alternative to conventional manned machinery if the establishment of intelligent controls was cost effective.  An increase in net returns of 22% over operating with conventional machinery was found.  This study also identified the break-even investment price for intelligen... J.M. Shockley, C. Dillon

50. An Economic-Theory-Based Approach to Management Zone Delineation

In both the academic and popular literatures on precision agriculture technology, a management zoneis generally defined as an area in a field within which the optimal input application strategy is spatially uniform.  The characteristics commonly chosen to delineate management zones, both in the literature and in commercial practice, are yield and variables associated with yield.  But microeconomic theory makes clear that economically optimal input application strategi... B. Edge

51. An Efficient Data Warehouse for Crop Yield Prediction

Nowadays, precision agriculture combined with modern information and communications technologies, is becoming more common in agricultural activities such as automated irrigation systems, precision planting, variable rate applications of nutrients and pesticides, and agricultural decision support systems. In the latter, crop management data analysis, based on machine learning and data mining, focuses mainly on how to efficiently forecast and improve crop yield. In recent years, raw and semi-pr... V.M. Ngo, N. Le-khac, M. Kechadi

52. An On-farm Experimental Philosophy for Farmer-centric Digital Innovation

In this paper, we review learnings gained from early On-Farm Experiments (OFE) conducted in the broadacre Australian grain industry from the 1990s to the present day. Although the initiative was originally centered around the possibilities of new data and analytics in precision agriculture, we discovered that OFEs could represent a platform for engaging farmers around digital technologies and innovation. Insight from interacting closely with farmers and advisors leads us to argue for a change... S. Cook, M. Lacoste, F. Evans, M. Ridout, M. Gibberd, T. Oberthur

53. An RFID-Based Variable Rate Technology Fertilizer Applicator for Plantation Tree Crops

Currently, in the Malaysian tree crop plantation, fertilizer is applied manually or mechanically at uniform rate without due consideration to nutrient variability. Potential wastage and excessive application of this fertilizer contaminates ground water and raises its mineral contents above the World Health Organization (WHO) limit for safe drinking water. However, Variable Rate Technology (VRT) fertilizer application promotes Green Engineering practice by reducing excessive fertilizer ap... A. Yahya

54. Analysis of Soil Properties Predictability Using Different On-the-Go Soil Mapping Systems

Understanding the spatial variability of soil chemical and physical attributes allows for the optimization of the profitability of nutrient and water management for crop development. Considering the advantages and accessibility of various types of multi-sensor platforms capable of acquiring large sensing data pertaining to soil information across a landscape, this study compares data obtained using four common soil mapping systems: 1) topography obtained using a real-time kinematic (RTK) glob... H. Huang, V. Adamchuk, A. Biswas, W. Ji, S. Lauzon

55. Analysis of Spatial Variability of Key Soil Attributes In North-Central Ukraine

As Ukrainian agricultural production undergoes major changes, a better understanding of the diversity of land resources is needed to optimize management.  Dealing with large fields (over 100 ha in size) with non-uniform growing conditions presents an opportunity for site-specific management of agricultural inputs. This publication describes our 2010 pilot study on the implementation of integrated mapping of apparent soil electrical conductivity and field topography to guide soil sampling... Y.I. Boyko, V.I. Adamchuk

56. Analyzing Trends for Agricultural Decision Support System Using Twitter Data

The trends and reactions of the general public towards global events can be analyzed using data from social platforms, including Twitter. The number of tweets has been reported to help detect variations in communication traffic within subsets like countries, age groups and industries. Similarly, publicly accessible data and (in particular) data from social media about agricultural issues provide a great opportunity for obtaining instantaneous snapshots of farmers’ opinions and a method ... S. Jha, D. Saraswat, M.D. Ward

57. Application of a Systems Model to a Spatially Complex Irrigated Agricultural System: A Case Study

Although New Zealand is water-rich, many of the intensively farmed lowland areas suffer frequent summer droughts. Irrigation schemes have been developed to move water from rivers and aquifers to support agricultural production. There is therefore a need to develop tools and recommendations that consider both water dynamics and outcomes in these irrigated cropping systems. A spatial framework for an existing systems model (APSIM Next Generation) was developed that could capture the variability... J. Sharp, C. Hedley

58. Application of Information Technologies in Precision Apiculture

Apiculture, widely known as beekeeping, is one of the agriculture’s sub directions, where Precision Agriculture (PA) methods can be successfully applied. Adaptation of PA methods and technics into Apiculture, as well as integrating information technologies into beekeeping process can change and improve the beekeepers understanding of bee... E. Stalidzans, A. Zacepins, J. Meitalovs

59. Application of Routines for Automation of Geostatistical Analysis Procedures and Interpolation of Data by Ordinary Kriging

Ordinary kriging (OK) is one of the most suitable interpolation methods for the construction of thematic maps used in precision agriculture. However, the use of OK is complex. Farmers/agronomists are generally not highly trained to use geostatistical methods to produce soil and plant attribute maps for precision agriculture and thus ensure that best management approaches are used. Therefore, the objective of this work was to develop and apply computational routines using procedures and geosta... N.M. Betzek, E.G. Souza, C.L. Bazzi, P.G. Magalhães, A. Gavioli, K. Schenatto, R.W. Dall'agnol

60. Application of RS, GPS & GIS in a National Monitoring System for Accurate Range Assessment

Sustainable use of rangelands requires information on vegetation cover and its changes through time, condition trend and the effect of climate as well as management practices. The main objective of this research was showing variation of vegetation para... H.P. Arzani, M.S. Azimi, S.D. kaboli, H.M. mirdavodi, M.M. Borhani, J.M. Abdollahi, M.D. farahpour

61. Application of Variable-Rate Irrigation for Potato Productivity

Variable-rate irrigation (VRI) has the potential to increase yields and reduce water consumption and energy costs. Spatial and temporal variability of soil and field properties can impact the efficiency of irrigation and crop yield. The VRI technology allows for the precise application of irrigation to meet crop water demands in controlled amounts prescribed for specific management zones within a field. Sensitivity to over and under-irrigation and the high-water requirements of potato make th... A. Yari, C. Madramootoo, S.A. Woods, V.I. Adamchuk, L. Gilbert

62. Applications for Precision Agriculture: the Italian Experience of SIRIUS Project

    This paper reports the results of the project SIRIUS (Sustainable Irrigation water management and River-ba... P. Nino, S. Vanino, F. Lupia, F. Altobelli, F. Vuolo, I. Namdarian, C. De michele

63. Applying a Bivariate Frequency Ratio Technique for Potato High Yield Susceptibility Mapping

Spatial variation of soil characteristics and vegetation conditions are viewed as the most important indicators of crop yield status. Therefore, this study was designed to develop a crop yield prediction model through spatial autocorrelation between the actual yield of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) crop and selected yield status indicators (soil N, EC, pH, texture and vegetation condition), where the vegetation condition was represented by the cumulative normalized difference vegetation index... K. Al-gaadi, A.A. Hassaballa, E. Tola, R. Madugundu, A.G. Kayad

64. Appropriate Wavelengths for Winter Wheat Growth Status Based On Multi-Spectral Crop Reflectance Data

One of the applications of remote sensing in agriculture is to obtain crop status for estimation and management of variable rate of inputs in the crop production. In order to select the appropriate wavelengths relat... I. Han-ya, K. Ishii, N. Noguchi, V. Rasooli sharabian

65. Architecture and Model of Data Integration between Management Systems and Agricultural Machines for Precision Agriculture

 The development of robotic systems has challenges as the high degree of interdisciplinarity, the difficulty of integration between the various robotic contro... R. Dutra, R. Sousa, A. Porto, R. Inamasu, W. Lopes, M. Tronco

66. Assembly of an Ultrasound Sensors System for Mapping of Sugar Cane Height

In Precision Agriculture, the use of sensors provides faster data collection on plant, soil, and climate, allowing collecting larger sample sets with better information quality. The objective of this study was the development of a system for plant height measurement in order to mapping of sugar cane crop, so that regions with plant growth variation and grow failures could be id... A.H. Garcia, F.H. Rodrigues júnior, A.H. Bastos, P.S. Magalhaes, M.J. Silva

67. Assessing the Potential of an Algorithm Based On Mean Climatic Data to Predict Wheat Yield

In crop yield prediction, the unobserved future weather remains the key point of predictions. Since weather forecasts are limited in time, a large amount of information may come from the analysis of past weather data. Mean data over the past years and stochastically generated data are two possible ways to compensate the lack of future data. This research aims to demonstrate that it is possible to p... F. Vancutsem, V. Leemans, S. Ferrandis vallterra, B. Bodson, J. Destain, M. Destain, B. Dumont

68. Assessing Water Status in Wheat under Field Conditions Using Laser-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence and Hyperspectral Measurements

Classical measurements for estimating water status in plants using oven drying or pressure chambers are tedious and time-consuming. In the field, changes in radiation conditions may further influence the measurements and thus requir... S. El-sayed, U. Schmidhalter, B. Mistele

69. Assessment of Crop Growth Under Modified Center Pivot Irrigation Systems Using Small Unmanned Aerial System Based Imaging Techniques

Irrigation accounts for about 80% consumptive use of water in the Northwest of United States. Even small increases in water use efficiency can improve crop production, yield, and have more water available for alternative uses. Center pivot irrigation systems are widely recognized in the irrigation industry for being one of the most efficient sprinkler systems. In recent years, there has been a shift from high pressure impact sprinklers on the top of center pivots to Mid Elevation Spray Applic... M. Chakraborty, T. Peters, L. Khot

70. Assessment of Land Use Changes in Dirab Region of Saudi Arabia Using Remotely Sensed Imageries

A thorough knowledge of land use changes is important for planning and management activities of land resources.  Moreover, it is considered ... K.A. Al-gaadi

71. Assessment of Red-Edge Based Vegetation Indices Derived from Unmanned Arial Vehicle for Plant Nitrogen Content Estimation

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become increasingly popular in recent years for agricultural research. High spatial and temporal resolution images obtained with UAVs are ideal for many applications in agriculture. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of red edge based vegetation indices (VIs) derived from UAV images for quantification of plant nitrogen (N) content of spring wheat, a major cereal crop worldwide. This study was conducted at three locations in Idaho, ... O.S. Walsh, S. Shafian

72. Assessment of the Information Content in Solar Reflective Satellite Measurements with Respect to Crop Growth Model State Variables

To increase the utilization of satellite remote sensing data in precision agriculture, it is necessary to retrieve the most relevant variables from the satellite signals so that the retrievals can be directly utilized by agricultural management entities. The variables that make up the state vector description of existing crop growth models provide inherent relevance to on-farm decision making because they can be used to predict future crop status based on changing farm inputs. In this study, ... N. Levitan, B. Gross

73. Automated Segmentation and Classification of Land Use from Overhead Imagery

Reliable land cover or habitat maps are an important component of any long-term landscape planning initiatives relying on current and past land use. Particularly in regions where sustainable management of natural resources is a goal, high spatial resolution habitat maps over large areas will give guidance in land-use management. We propose a computational approach to identify habitats based on the automated analysis of overhead imagery. Ultimately, this approach could be used to assist expert... C. Pradalier, A. Richard, V. Perez, R. Van couwenberghe, A. Benbihi, P. Durand

74. Automatic Remote Image Processing For Agriculture Uses Through Specific Software

Abstract ... D. Gómez-candón, J.J. Caballero-novella, J.M. Peña-barragán, M. Jurado-expósito, F. López-granados, L. Garcia-torres, A.I. Decastro

75. Autonomous Mapping of Grass-Clover Ratio Based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Convolutional Neural Networks

This paper presents a method which can provide support in determining the grass-clover ratio, in grass-clover fields, based on images from an unmanned aerial vehicle. Automated estimation of the grass-clover ratio can serve as a tool for optimizing fertilization of grass-clover fields. A higher clover content gives a higher performance of the cows, when the harvested material is used for fodder, and thereby this has a direct impact on the dairy industry. An android ... D. Larsen, S. Skovsen, K.A. Steen, K. Grooters, O. Green, R.N. Jørgensen, J. Eriksen

76. Barriers to Adoption of Smart Farming Technologies in Germany

The number of smart farming technologies available on the market is growing rapidly. Recent surveys show that despite extensive research efforts and media coverage, adoption of smart farming technologies is still lower than expected in Germany. Media analysis, a multi stakeholder workshop, and the Adoption and Diffusion Outcome Prediction Tool (ADOPT) (Kuehne et al. 2017) were applied to analyze the underlying adoption barriers that explain the low to moderate adoption levels of smart farming... M. Gandorfer, S. Schleicher, K. Erdle

77. Bayesian Methods for Predicting LAI and Soil Moisture

Crop models describe the growth and development of a crop interacting with soil, climate, and managemen... M. Majdi, D. Benjamin, D. Marie-france

78. Beyond NDVI - Additional Benefits of RapidEye Image Products

... U. Schulthess, K. Schelling

79. BrainWeed - Teach-In System for Adaptive High Speed Crop / Weed Classification and Targeting

Conducting inter row mechanical weeding requires the precise location of each individual crop plant is known. One technique is to record the global position of each seed when sown using  RTK-GPS systems. An... R.N. JÃ???Ã??Ã?¸rgensen, H.S. Midtiby, T.M. Giselsson

80. Brazilian Precision Agriculture Research Network

The adoption of adequate technologies for food, biomass and fiber production can increase yield and quality and also reduce environmental impact through an efficient input application. Precision agriculture is the way to decisively contribute with efficient production with environment protection in Brazil. Based on this, recently Embrapa established the Brazilian P... J.D. Naime, L.R. Queiros, A.V. Resende, M.D. Vilela, L.H. Bassoi, N.B. Perez, A.C. Bernardi, R.Y. Inamasu

81. Calculating the Water Deficit of Apple Orchard by Means of Spatially Resolved Approach

In semi-humid climate, spatially resolved analysis of water deficit was carried out in apple orchard (Malus x domestica 'Pinova'). The meteorological data were recorded daily by a weather station. The apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) was measured at field capacity, and twenty soil samples in 30 cm were gathered for texture, bulk density, and gravimetric soil water content analyses. Furthermore, ten trees were defoliated in different ECa regions in order to estimate the leaf... N. Tsoulias, D. Paraforos, N. Brandes, S. Fountas, M. Zude-sasse

82. Can Active Sensor Based NDVI Consistently Classify Wheat Genotypes?

ABSTRACT ... M.A. Naser, R. khosla, S. Haley, R. Reich, L. Longchamps, M. Moragues, G.W. buchleiter, G.S. Mcmaster

83. Can Optimization Associated with On-Farm Experimentation Using Site-Specific Technologies Improve Producer Management Decisions?

Crop production input decisions have become increasingly difficult due to uncertainty in global markets, input costs, commodity prices, and price premiums. We hypothesize that if producers had better knowledge of market prices, spatial variability in crop response, and weather conditions that drive crop response to inputs, they could more cost-effectively make profit-maximizing input decisions. Understanding the drivers of variability in crop response and designing accompanying management str... B.D. Maxwell, A. Bekkerman, N. Silverman, R. Payn, J. Sheppard, C. Izurieta, P. Davis, P.B. Hegedus

84. Can Unreplicated Strip Trials Be Used in Precision On-Farm Experiments?

On-farm experiments are used to evaluate a wide variety of products ranging from pesticide and fertilizer rates to the installation of tile drainage. The experimental design for these experiments is usually replicated strip trials.  Replication of strip trials is used to estimate experimental error, which is the basis for judging statistical significance of treatment effects. Another consideration for using strip trials is greater within-field variability than smaller fields us... G. Hatfield, G. Reicks, E. Carter

85. Canopy Parameters in Coffee Orchards Obtained by a Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanner

The application of mobile terrestrial laser scanner (MTLS) has been studied for different tree crops such as citrus, apple, olive, pears and others. Such sensing system is capable of accurately estimating relevant canopy parameters such as volume and can be used for site-specific applications and for high throughput plant phenotyping. Coffee is an important tree crop for Brazil and could benefit from MTLS applications. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to define a field protocol for... F. Hoffmann silva karp, A. Feritas colaço, R. Gonçalves trevisan, J.P. Molin

86. Canopy Temperature Mapping with a Vineyard Robot

The wine industry is a strategic sector in many countries worldwide. High revenues in the wine market typically result in higher investments in specialized equipment, so that producers can introduce disruptive technology for increasing grape production and quality. However, many European producers are approaching retirement age, and therefore the agricultural sector needs a way for attracting young farmers who can assure the smooth transition between generations; digital technology offers an ... V. Saiz-rubio, M. Diago, J. Tardaguila, S. Gutierrez, F. Rovira-más, F. Alves

87. Categorization of Districts Based on Nonexchangeable Potassium: Generation GIS Maps and Implications in Efficient K Fertility Management in Indian Agriculture

Recommendations of K fertilizer are made based on available (exchangeable + water soluble) K status only  in India and other despite of  substantial contribution of nonexchangeable fraction of soil K to crop K uptake. Present paper examines the information generated in the last 30 years on the status of nonexchangeable K in Indian soils, categorization of Indian soils based on exchangeable and nonexchangeable K fractions and making K recommendations. Data for both K fractions of dif... C. Srinivasa rao, K. Rao, H. Magen, B. Venkateswarlu, A. Subba rao

88. Challenges and Opportunities for Precision Dairy Farming in New Zealand.

A study was commissioned by DairyNZ, a dairy industry good organisation in New Zealand, to identify some of the key challenges and opportunities in the precision dairy space. In New Zealand there has been an increasing research focus on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) ... I. Yule , C. Eastwood

89. Changing the Cost of Farming: New Tools for Precision Farming

Accurate prescription maps are essential for effective variable rate fertilizer application.  Grid soil sampling has most frequently been used to develop these prescription maps.  Past research has indicated several technical and economic limitations associated with this approach.  There is a need to keep the number of samples to a minimum while still allowing a reasonable level of map quality.  As can be seen, precision agriculture managemen... P. Nagel, K. Fleming

90. Characterization of Soil Properties, Nutrient Distribution and Rice (Oryza Sativa.) Productivity As Influenced by Tillage Methods in a Typical Gleysols

Global emphasis and interest in conservation Tillage in agricultural soils has tremendously increased in the last few years, especially no tillage with its potential to improve soil physicochemical properties, reduce nutrient leaching as well as improve crop productivity in a more sustainable manner.  Several questions still exist with regard to the true role of no tillage in improving soil fertility. A two year field study was conducted to characterize the effects of different tillage m... F. Issaka, L. Yongtao, L. Jiuhao, M.M. Buri, E. Asenso, A. Sheka kanu, Z. Zhao

91. Climatological Diagnostic Analysis: A Case Study for Parbhani District in Marathwada Region of India

... S.N. Pawar, A.K. Gore, G.U. Shinde, M.S. Pendke

92. Cloud Computing and Web 2.0 Mapping Technologies for Disseminating Land Use Planning Information

Open source software and cloud computing techniques could substantially improve the performance and reduce the cost of disseminating land-use planning information for the USDA-NRCS and other organizations. This is a major upgrade of our previously work (Hamilton,2009; Neelakantan et al., 2011). The purpose of this study is to develop a prototype cloud-based Web 2.0 mapping system for MLRA-121 which is primarily in Kentuck... T. Mueller

93. Cloud Computing, Web-Based GIS, Terrain Analysis, Data Fusion, and Multivariate Statistics for Precision Conservation in the 21st Century

... T. Mueller

94. Comparing Sensing Platforms for Crop Remote Sensing

Remote sensing offers the possibility to obtain a rapid and non-destructive diagnosis of crop health status. This gives the opportunity to apply variable rates of fertilizers to meet the actual crop needs at every locations of the field. However, the commonly used normalized difference vegetation index (ND... R. Khosla, L. Longchamps

95. Comparison and Evaluation of Spray Characteristics of Three Types of Variable-Rate Spray

For the present developing direction of "low-input sustainable agriculture", variable-rate technology is increasingly concerned in agricultural engineering field. The technology of variable-rate precision chemical application is the typical of variable-rate technology. In China, agro-chemical production technology has reached the international advanced level, but the chemical applic... C. Zhao, J. Zhou, W. Deng

96. Comparison of Active and Passive Spectral Sensors in Discriminating Biomass Parameters and Nitrogen Status in Wheat Cultivars

Several sensor systems are available for ground-based remote sensing in crops. Vegetation indices of multiple active and passive sensors have seldom been compared in determining plant health. This study was aimed to compare active and passive sensing systems in terms of their ability to recognize agronomic parameters. One bi-directional passive radiometer (BDR) and three active sensors (Crop Circle, GreenSeeker, and an active flash sensor (AFS)) were tested for their ability to assess six des... B. Mistele, U. Schmidhalter, K. Erdle

97. Comparison of Algorithms for Delineating Management Zones

... A.M. Saraiva, R.T. Santos, J.P. Molin

98. Comparison of the Performance of Two Vis-NIR Spectrometers in the Prediction of Various Soil Properties

Spectroscopy has shown capabilities of predicting certain soil properties. Hence, it is a promising avenue to complement traditional wet chemistry analysis that is costly and time-consuming. This study focuses on the comparison of two Vis-NIR instruments of different resolution to assess the effect of the resolution on the ability of an instrument to predict various soil properties. In this study, 798 air dried and compressed soil samples representing different agro-climatic conditions across... M. Marmette, V. Adamchuk, J. Nault, S. Tabatabai, R. Cocciardi

99. Compatible ISOBUS Applications Using a Computational Tool for Support the Phases of the Precision Agriculture Cycle

... W.C. Lopes, G. Domingues, R.V. Sousa, A.J. Porto, R.Y. Inamasu, R.R. Pereira

100. Compensating for Soil Moisture Effects in Estimation of Soil Properties by Electrical Conductivity Sensing

Bulk apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) is the most widely used soil sensing modality in precision agriculture. Soil ECa relates to multiple soil properties, including clay content (i.e., texture) and salt content (i.e., salinity). However, calibrations of ECa to soil properties are not temporally stable, due in large part to soil moisture differences between measurement dates. Therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate the effects of temporal soil moisture variatio... K.A. Sudduth, N.R. Kitchen, E.D. Vories, S.T. Drummond

101. Computer Aided Engineering Analysis and Design Optimization for Precision Manufacturing of Tillage Tool: Sweep Cultivator

The process optimization in advance tillage tool system conceptually designed and fabricated by computer aided engineering analysis techniques. The Software testing a field performance is taken in the soil bed preparation as well as in the various crop patterns. It was found most use full in obtaining high weed removal efficiency. The precision geometry, optimum energy utilization, multi-operational design, easy transport and flexible attachments are some of the features which results in achi... G.U. Shinde, D.M. Salokhe, P.D. Badgujar, D.B. Sharma

102. Computer Vision Techniques Applied to Natural Scenes Recognition and Autonomous Locomotion of Agricultural Mobile Robots

The use of computer systems in Precision Agriculture (PA) promotes the processes’ automation and its applied tasks, specifically the inspection and analysis of agricultural crops, and guided/autonomous locomotion of mobile robots. In this context, this research aims the application of computer vision techniques for agricultural mobile robot locomotion, settled through an architecture for the acquisition, image processing and analysis, in order to segment, classify and recognize patterns... L.C. Lugli, M.L. Tronco, A.J. Porto

103. Corn Nitrogen Fertilizer Recommendation Models Based on Soil Hydrologic Groups Aid in Predicting Economically Optimal Nitrogen Rates

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer recommendations that match corn (Zea mays L.) N needs maximize grower profits and minimize water quality consequences. However, spatial and temporal variability makes determining future N requirements difficult. Studies have shown no single soil or weather measurement is consistently increases accuracy, especially when applied over a regional scale, in predicting economically optimal N rate (EONR). Basing site N response on soil hydrological group could help account fo... G.M. Bean, N.R. Kitchen, J.J. Camberato, R.B. Ferguson, F.G. Fernandez, D.W. Franzen, C.A. Laboski, E.D. Nafziger, J.E. Sawyer, P.C. Scharf

104. Correlating Plant Nitrogen Status in Cotton with UAV Based Multispectral Imagery

Cotton is an indeterminate crop; therefore, fertility management has a major impact on the growth pattern and subsequent yield. Remote sensing has become a promising method of assessing in-season cotton N status in recent years with the adoption of reliable low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), high-resolution sensors and availability of advanced image processing software into the precision agriculture field. This study was conducted on a UGA Tifton campus farm located in Tifton, GA. The ... W. Porter, D. Daughtry, G. Harris, R. Noland, J. Snider, S. Virk

105. Correlations Between Meteorological Parameters and the Water Loss of Maize from Silking to Harvesting

The University of Debrecen provides outstanding conditions for the development of “Smart Weather for Precision Agriculture” programs. The reliability of research is provided by the Polyfactoral Long-term Field Experiments of Debrecen (hybrid x fertilisation x plant density x tillage x irrigation) established in 1983. Within this research program, it is possible to examine various crop cultures, cultivars and hybrids under changing natural, environmental and weather circu... K.B. Bodnár, J. Nagy, B. Gombos

106. Creating Thematic Maps and Management Zones for Agriculture Fields

Thematic maps (TMs) are maps that represent not only the land but also a topic associated with it, and they aim to inform through graphic symbols where a specific geographical phenomenon occurs. Development of TMs is linked to data collection, analysis, interpretation, and representation of the information on a map, facilitating the identification of similarities, and enabling the visualization of spatial correlations. Important issues associated with the creation of TMs are: selection of the... E. Souza, K. Schenatto, C. Bazzi

107. Crop Price Variation and Water Saving Technologies in Alborz Province of Iran

Considering the importance and scarcity of water resources, the efficient management of water resources is of great imp,ortance. Adoption of modern irrigation technology is considered to be a key of increasing the efficiency of water used in agriculture. Policy makers have implemented several ways to induce the adoption of new irrigation technology. The empirical studies show that farmers are reluctant to utilize the use of new irrigation methods. This study aims to assess factors affecting o... S. Yazdani, S. Nikravesh, S. Bagheri

108. Current Status and Future Directions of Precision Aerial Application For Site-Specific Crop Management In The USA

Precision agriculture includes different technologies that allow agricultural professional to use information management tools to optimize agriculture production. The new technologies allow aerial application applicators to improve application accuracy and efficiency, which saves time and money for the farmer and the pilot. The USDA-ARS-Aerial Application Technology group has an active research component in precisi... W.C. Hoffmann, Y. Lan

109. Data Clustering Tools for Understanding Spatial Heterogeneity in Crop Production by Integrating Proximal Soil Sensing and Remote Sensing Data

Remote sensing (RS) and proximal soil sensing (PSS) technologies offer an advanced array of methods for obtaining soil property information and determining soil variability for precision agriculture. A large amount of data collected using these sensors may provide essential information for precision or site-specific management in a production field. In this paper, we introduced a new clustering technique was introduced and compared with existing clustering tools for determining relatively hom... M. Saifuzzaman, V.I. Adamchuk, H. Huang, W. Ji, N. Rabe, A. Biswas

110. Data Fusion of Imagery from Different Satellites for Global and Daily Crop Monitoring

Satellite-based Crop Monitoring is an important tool for decision making of irrigation, fertilization, crop protection, damage assessment and more. To allow crop monitoring worldwide, on a daily basis, data fusion of images taken by different satellites is required. So far, most researches on data fusion focus on retrospective analysis, while advanced crop monitoring capabilities mandate the use of data in real time mode. Therefore, our project goals were: (1) to build a data-fusion online sy... O. Beeri, R. Pelta, S. Mey-tal, J. Raz

111. Data Power: Understanding the Impacts of Precision Agriculture on Social Relations

Precision agriculture has been greatly promoted for the potential of these technologies to sustainably intensify food production through increasing yields and profits, decreasing the environmental impacts of production, and improving food safety and transparency in the food system through the data collected by precision agriculture technologies.  However, little attention has been given to the potential of these technologies to impact social relations within the agricultural industry.&nb... E. Duncan, E. Fraser

112. Data-Driven Agricultural Machinery Activity Anomaly Detection and Classification

In modern agriculture, machinery has become the one of the necessities in providing safe, effective and economical farming operations and logistics. In a typical farming operation, different machines perform different tasks, and sometimes are used together for collaborative work. In such cases, different machines are associated with representative activity patterns, for example, in a harvest scenario, combines move through a field following regular swaths while grain carts follow irregular pa... Y. Wang, A. Balmos, J. Krogmeier, D. Buckmaster

113. Davco's Journey Into Precision Sugarcane Farming

Davco's Journey Into Precision Sugarcane Farming ... D. Cox

114. Delineation of 'Management Classes' Within Non-Irrigated Maize Fields Using Readily Available Reflectance Data and Their Correspondence to Spatial Yield Variation

Maize is grown predominantly for silage or gain in North Island, New Zealand. Precision agriculture allows management of spatially variable paddocks by variably applying crop inputs tailored to distinctive potential-yield limiting areas of the paddock, known as management zones. However, uptake of precision agriculture among in New Zealand maize growers is slow and limited, largely due to lack of data, technical expertise and evidence of financial benefits. Reflectance data of satellite and a... D.C. Ekanayake, J. Owens, A. Werner, A. Holmes

115. Delineation of Site-Specific Nutrient Management Zones to Optimize Rice Production Using Proximal Soil Sensing and Multispectral Imaging

Evaluating nutrient uptake and site-specific nutrient management zones in rice in Costa Rica from plant tissue and soil sampling is expensive because of the time and labor involved.  In this project, a range of measurement techniques were implemented at different vintage points (soil, plant and UAVs) in order to generate and compare nutrient management information.  More precisely, delineation of site-specific nutrient management zones were determined using 1) georeferenced soil/tis... J.E. Villalobos, J.S. Perret, K. Abdalla, C.L. Fuentes, J.C. Rodriguez, W. Novais

116. Delineation of Soil Management Zones: Comparison of Three Proximal Soil Sensor Systems Under Commercial Potato Field in Eastern Canada.

Precision agriculture (PA) involves optimization of seeding, fertilizer application, irrigation, and pesticide use to optimize crop production for the purpose of increasing grower revenue and protecting the environment. Potato crops (Solanum tuberosum L.) are recognized as good candidates for the adoption of PA because of the high cost of inputs. In addition, the sensitivity of potato yield and quality to crop management and environmental conditions makes precision management economicall... A. Cambouris, I. Perron, B. Zebarth, F. Vargas, K. Chokmani, A. Biswas, V. Adamchuk

117. Deriving Fertiliser VRA Calibration Based on Ground Sensing Data from Specific Field Experiments

Nitrogen (N) fertilisation affects both rice yield and quality. In order to improve grain yield while limiting N losses, providing N fertilisers during the critical growth stages is essential. NDRE is considered a reliable crop N status indicator, suitable to drive topdressing N fertilisation in rice. A multi-year experiment on different rice varieties (Gladio, Centauro, and Carnaroli) was conducted between 2011 and 2017 in Castello d’Agogna (PV), northwest Italy, with the aim of i) est... E. Cordero, D. Sacco, B. Moretti, E.F. Miniotti, D. Tenni, G. Beltarre, M. Romani, C. Grignani

118. Deriving Nitrogen Indicators of Maize Using the Canopy Chlorophyll Content Index

Many spectral indices have been proposed to derive aerial nitrogen (N) status parameters of crops in recent decades. However, most of red light based spectral indices easily loss sensitivity at moderate-high aboveground biomass. The objective of present study is to assess the performance of red edge bas... Y. Miao, F. Li

119. Design and Analysis of ISO 11783 Task Controller's Functionality in Server - Client ECU for Agricultural Vehicles

A modern agricultural vehicle's electronic control units (ECU) communicated based on the ISO 11783 standards. The connection of different machines, implements, different manufacturers into a single bus for the exchange of control commands and sensor data are a challenge for the precision agriculture. One of main functionality is the Task controller in the intelligent monitoring system. The task controller is to log data and assign set-point values for automated work (task) seque... E. Tumenjargal, E. Batbayar, S. Munkhbayar, S. Tsogt-ochir, M. Oyumaa, K. Chung, W. Ham

120. Design and Implementation of Virtual Terminal Based On ISO11783 Standard for Agricultural Tractors

The modern agricultural machinery most common use of the embedded electronic and remote sensing technology demands adoption of the Precision Agriculture (PA). One of the common devices is the Virtual Terminal (VT) for tractor. The VT’s functions and terminology are described in the ISO11783 standard. This work presents the control system design and implementation of the VT and some Electronic Control Units (ECU) for agricultural vehicles based on the ISO 11783 standard. The VT developme... E. Tumenjargal, L. Badarch, W. Ham, H. Kwon

121. Design and Performance Experiment of an Outer Grooved-Wheel Fertilizer Apparatus with the Helical Tooth

Traditional outer groove-wheel fertilizer apparatus (OGWFA) with the straight tooth exists the problem of breakage and pulsation in the fertilizing process. A new type of OGWFA with the helical tooth has been designed to solve this problem, and the amount of fertilizer can be adjusted. The helix angle of the helical tooth has been optimized by theory analysis and DEM simulation. It reveals that the helix angle should be ranged from 34.4° to 68.8°. The performances of the OGWFA with th... D. Jun, X. Junfang, Z. Wangyuan, W. Qiaohua, D. Youchun, S. Caixia, Z. Zhihui

122. Design Of A Data Acquisition System For Weighing Lysimeters

The weighing lysimeter is an important tool for scientists to con... C. Zhang, X. Xue, L. Chen, W. Huang

123. Design of Ground Surface Sensing Using RADAR

Ground sensing is the key task in harvesting head control system. Real time sensing of field topography under vegetation canopy is very challenging task in wild blueberry cropping system. This paper presents the design of an ultra-wide band RADAR sensing, scanning device to recognize the soil surface level under the canopy structure. Requirements for software and hardware were considered to determine the usability of the ultra-wide band RADAR system.An automated head ... M.M. Mohamed, Q. Zaman, T. Esau, A. Farooque

124. Designated Value for a Field Polygon Based on Imagery Data: A Case Study of Crop Vigor in Agricultural Application for Irrigation

Any irrigation action for a field management zone, which is based on images, requires a transformation into single value. Since data distribution is ab-normal in an image, using a mean value to estimate the crop coefficient (Kc), an overlaid polygon may not represent properly its water demand. Therefore, this project’s aim was to examine to which extent different statistics of potential designated values will affect an estimated Kc, and consequently affect irrigation practices. ... R. Rud, O. Beeri, S. Mey-tal

125. Detecting Basal Stem Rot (BSR) Disease at Oil Palm Tree Using Thermal Imaging Technique

Basal stem rot (BSR), caused by Ganoderma boninense is known as the most damaging disease in oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia. Ganoderma could reduce the productivity of oil palm plantations and potentially reduce the market value of palm oil in Malaysia. Early disease management of Ganoderma could prevent production losses and reduce the cost of plantation management. This study focuses on identifying the thermal properties of healthy and BSR-infected tree using a thermal ima... S. Bejo, G. Abdol lajis, S. Abd aziz, I. Abu seman, T. Ahamed

126. Detecting Variability in Plant Water Potential with Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagery

Irrigation Intelligence is a practice of precise irrigation, with the goal of providing crops with the right amount of water, at the right time, for optimized yield. One of the ways to achieve that, on a global scale, is to utilize Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 images, providing together frequent revisit cycles of less than a week, and an adequate resolution for detection of 1 ha plots. Yet, in order to benefit from these advantages, it is necessary to examine the information that can be extracted... O. Beeri, S. May-tal, R. Rud, Y. Raz, R. Pelta

127. Detection and Monitoring the Risk Level for Lameness and Lesions in Dairy Herds by Alternative Machine-Learning Algorithms

Machine-learning methods may play an increasing role in the development of precision agriculture tools to provide predictive insights in dairy farming operations and to routinely monitor the status of dairy cows. In the present study, we explored the use of a machine-learning approach to detect and monitor the welfare status of dairy herds in terms of lameness and lesions based on pre-recorded farm-based records. Animal-based measurements such as lameness and lesions are time-consuming, expen... D. Warner, R. Lacroix, E. Vasseur, D. Lefebvre

128. Determination of Optimal Number of Management Zones

... A. Melnitchouck

129. Determination of Sensor Locations for Monitoring of Greenhouse Ambient Environment

In protected crop production facilities such as greenhouse and plant factory, f... S. Chung, K. Kim, Y. Huh, S. Hur, S. Ha, M. Ryu, H. kim, K. han

130. Determination of Sensor Locations for Monitoring of Soil Water Content in Greenhouse

 Monitoring and control of environmental condition is highly important for optimum control of the conditions, especially in greenhouse and plant factor, and the conditio... S. Chung, Y. Huh, J. Choi, D. Ryu, K. Kim, H. Kim, H. Kim

131. Developing an Integrated Approach for Estimation of Soil Available Nutrient Content Using the Modified WOFOST Model and Time-Series Multispectral UAV Observations

Soil available nutrient (SAN) plays an important role in crop growth, yield formation, and plant-soil-atmosphere system exchange. Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are recognized as three primary nutrients in crop production. Accurate and timely information on SAN conditions at key crop growth stages is important for developing beneficial management practices. While traditional field sampling can obtain reliable information for limited number of sites, it is infeasible for spatia... Z. Cheng, J. Meng, J. Shang, J. Liu, B. Qian, Q. Jing

132. Developing an Integrated Rice Management System for Improved Yield and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Northeast China

... G. Zhao, Y. Miao, F. Zhang, M. Fan

133. Development of a Graphical User Interface for Spinner-Disc Spreader Calibration and Spread Uniformity Assessment

Broadcast fertilizer distribution through spinner-disc spreaders remain the most cost-effective, and least time consuming process to apply the needed soil amendments for the next crop. Spreaders currently available to producers enable them to apply a variety of granular products at varying rates, blends, and swath widths. In order to uniformly apply granular fertilizer or lime, the spreader should be calibrated by standard pan testing with any change in spreader settings, application rate, or... R. Colley iii, Y. Lin, J. Fulton, S. Shearer

134. Development of a High Resolution Soil Moisture for Precision Agriculture in India

Soil moisture and temperature are key inputs to several precision agricultural applications such as irrigation scheduling, identifying crop health, pest and disease prediction, yield and acreage estimation, etc.  The existing remote sensing satellites based soil moisture products such as SMAP are of coarse resolution and physics based land surface model such as NLDAS, GLDAS are of coarse resolution as well as not available for real time applications.  Keeping this in focus, we are d... K. Das, J. Singh, J. Hazra

135. Development of a Machine Vision Yield Monitor for Shallot Onion Harvesters

Crop yield estimation and mapping are important tools that can help growers efficiently use their available resources and have access to detailed representations of their farm. Technical advancements in computer vision have improved the detection, quality assessment and yield estimation processes for crops, including apples, citrus, mangoes, maize, figs and many other fruits. However, similar methods capable of exporting a detailed yield map for vegetable crops have not yet been fully develop... A.A. Boatswain jacques, V.I. Adamchuk, G. Cloutier, J.J. Clark, C. Miller

136. Development of a Manual Soil Sensing System for Measuring Multiple Chemical Soil Properties in the Field

Variable Rate Fertilizer Application (VRA) requires the input of soil chemical data. One of the preferred methods for analyzing soil chemical properties in the field is by using Ion Selective Electrodes (ISEs). To accommodate portability in soil measurements, a manual soil sampling system was developed. Nitrate, Phosphate and pH ISEs were integrated to provide a general outlook on the condition of essential soil nutrients. These ISEs were placed on a modified hand-held soil sampler equip... E. Leksono, V. Adamchuk, J. Whalen, R. Buelvas

137. Development of a PWM Precision Spraying Controller

This paper presents a new p... Y. Lan, H. Zhu

138. Development of a Quick Diagnosis Method to Target Fields with Better Potential for Site-Specific Weed Management

Site-specific weed management appears as an innovative way of saving herbicides in crop while maintaining yield. This can potentially lead economic and ecological benefits. However, it was reported in the literature that savings range from 1 % to 94 % from one field to the other. This implies that certain ... B. Panneton, M. Simard, G.D. Leroux, L. Longchamps

139. Development of a Small Tracking Device for Cattle Using IoT Technology

The US is the largest producer of beef in the world. Last year alone, it produces nearly 19% of the world’s beef.  This translate to about almost $90 billion in economic impact in the country. Aside from being a producer, the US also consumed more than 26 billion pounds of beef which have a retail value of the entire beef industry to more than $74B. For this level of production and consumption, each rancher in the US must produce a herd size of at least 100 or more to sustain the c... J.M. Maja, A.K. Blocker, E.G. Stuckey, S.G. Sell, G. Tuttle, J. Mueller, J. Andrae

140. Development of a Soil ECa Inversion Algorithm for Topsoil Depth Characterization

Electromagnetic induction (EMI) proximal soil sensor systems can deliver rapid information about soil. One such example is the DUALEM-21S (Dualem, Inc. Milton, Ontario, Canada). EMI sensors measure soil apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) corresponding to different depth of investigation depending on the instrument configuration. The interpretation of the ECa measurements is not straightforward and it is often site-specific. Inversion is required to explore specific depths. This inversion ... E. Leksono, V. Adamchuk, W. Ji, M. Leclerc

141. Development of a Wireless Sensor Network for Passive in situ Measurement of Soil CO2 Gas Emissions in the Agriculture Landscape

Quantification of soil Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural fields is essential for understanding the environmental impact of intensive crop and livestock production systems. Current methods of analysis include flux calculations derived from the concentration of gases (CO2, N2O, CH4) exchanged between soil and the atmosphere. Samples of these GHG are obtained manually by closed non-steady state non-flow through,or “static”, chambers and analyzed ex situvia ga... V. Adamchuk, M. Debbagh, C. Madramootoo, J. Whalen

142. Development of an Online Decision-Support Infrastructure for Optimized Fertilizer Management

Determination of an optimum fertilizer application rate involves various influential factors, such as past management, soil characteristics, weather, commodity prices, cost of input materials and risk preference. Spatial and temporal variations in these factors constitute sources of uncertainties in selecting the most profitableapplication rate. Therefore, a decision support system (DSS) that could help to minimize production risks in the context of uncertain crop performance is needed. ... S. Shinde, V. Adamchuk, R. Lacroix, N. Tremblay, Y. Bouroubi

143. Development of an Overhead Optical Yield Monitor for a Sugarcane Harvester in Louisiana

A yield monitor is a device used to measure harvested crop weight per unit area for a specific location within a field.  The device documents yield variability in harvested fields and ultimately can be used to create a geographical-referenced yield map. Yield maps can be used to identify low yielding areas where poor soil fertility, disease, or pests may adversely affect yield.  Management practices can then be adjusted to correct these issues, resulting in an increase in yields and... R.R. Price, R.M. Johnson, R.P. Viator

144. Development of Farmland-Terrain Simulation System for Consistency of Seeding Depth

A farmland-terrain simulation system suitable for rugged topography was designed to study the irregularities of farmland surface morphology led by both topographic fluctuation and terrain tilt. The system consists of terrain simulation mechanism, hydraulic system, control system, etc. The terrain simulation mechanism is connected to the rack through hydraulic cylinder to simulate farmland surface fluctuation. The hydraulic system controls the hydraulic cylinder to drive the terrain simulation... W. Fu, J. Dong, Y. Cong, N. Gao, Y. Li, Z. Meng

145. Development of Ground Based Multi-source Crop Information Collection System.

Precision agriculture requires reliable technology to acquire accurate information on crop conditions. A ground-based integrated sensor and instrumentation system was developed to measure real-time crop conditions. The integration system included multispectral camera and N-sensor for real time Nitrogen application. The system was interfaced with a DGPS receiver to provide spatial coordinates for sensor readings. Before mounting of the sensors on modified paddy transplanter, different mounting... A. Sharma, M.S. Makkar, S. Gupta

146. Development of Sensing System Using Digital Photography Technique for Spot-Application of Herbicide in Wild Blueberry Fields

An automated sensing system, hardware and software, was developed for spot-application of herbicide with 6.1 m boom automated prototype spraye... Q. Zaman, T.J. Esau, A.A. Farooque, A.W. Schumann, D.C. Percival, Y.K. Chang

147. Development of Variable Rate Applicators Using Real-Time Machine Vision Sensing and Control System for Spot-Application of Agrochemicals

The variable rate applicators comprised of a real-time sensing and control system were developed and tested for spot-application of agrochemicals (fertilizer and pesticides). ... Q. Zaman

148. Different Leaf Sensing Approaches for the Estimation of Winter Wheat Nitrogen Status

Nondestructive real time diagnosis of crop N status is crucial to the development of precision nitrogen (N) management strategies. Chlorophyll meter has been a popular sensor for such purposes and different approaches to use this sensor has been developed using a threshold value, nitrogen sufficiency index (NSI) or ratio ... B. Liu, Y. Miao, G. Feng, S. Yue, F. Li, X. Gao

149. Differentiation of Cotton from Other Crops at Different Growth Stages Using Spectral Properties and Discriminant Analysis

Timely detection and remediation of volunteer cotton plants in both cultivated and non-cultivated habitats is critical for completing boll weevil eradication in Central and South Texas.  However, timely detection of cotton p... H. Zhang, Y. Lan

150. Digital Aerial Imagery Guides a Statewide Nutrient Management Benchmarking Survey

... P.M. Kyveryga, T.M. Blackmer

151. Digital Transformation of Canadian Agri-Food

Agriculture in Canada is on the cusp of a dramatic revolution as a result of the digital transformation of the industry driven by the emergence of tools such as Precision Agri-Food Technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT, a network of interconnected physical devices capable of connecting to the internet). With the expected exponential growth of data from the application of innovative technologies such as IoT by the Canadian Agri-Food industry, Canada has the potential to gain valuable in... K.J. Hand

152. Discussion

...

153. Draft Privacy Guidelines and Proposal Outline to Create a Field-Scale Trial Data Repository for Data Collected by On-Farm Networks

Implementing better management practices in corn and soybeans that increase profitability and reduce pollution caused by the practices requires large numbers of field-scale, replicated trials. Numerous complex and often unmeasurable interactions among the environment, genetics and management at the field scale require large numbers of trials completed at the field scale in a systematic and uniform manner to enable calculation of probabilities that a practice will be an improvement compared wi... T. Morris, N. Tremblay

154. Dynamic Feeding Intake Monitoring in Growing-Finishing Pigs Reared Under Precision Feeding Strategies

Pigs exposed to challenges with no prior experience change their daily feeding intake pattern. A method identifying deviations from normal feeding patterns could be used to develop a model framework to estimate individual nutrient requirements of challenged pigs fed with precision feeding systems. The objective of this study was to develop a tool for early identification of feed intake deviations in precision fed growing-finishing pigs. Feed intake measurements collected during 84 d in 126 gr... L. Hauschild, A.R. Kristensen, I. Andretta, C. Pomar, A. Remus

155. Ear-Attached Accelerometer as an On-Farm Device to Predict the Onset of Calving in Dairy Cows

The objective of this study on an ear-attached accelerometer in dairy cows was (1) to determine activity, rumination and lying time of the dams prior to calving, and include group level of measured variables (2) use the data to develop an algorithm to predict calving and (3) to test the performance of this algorithm. Video observations (24h/d) were used as reference for these events. Four weeks before expected calving, an ear-tag integrated tri-axial accelerometer (SMARTBOW system) was attach... S. Krieger, M. Oczak, L. Lidauer, F. Kickinger, M. Öhlschuster, W. Auer, M. Drillich, M. Iwersen, A. Berger

156. Early Detection of Corn N-Deficiency by Active Fluorescence Sensing in Maize

Globally, the agricultural nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is no more than 40 %. This low efficiency comes with an agronomic, economic and environmental cost. By better management of spatial and temporal variability of crop nitrogen need, NUE can be improved. Currently available crop canopy sensors based on reflectance are cap... R. Khosla, D.G. Westfall, L. Longchamps

157. Early Detection of Oil Palm Fungal Disease Infestation Using A Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy Technique

Basal stem rot (BSR) caused by Ganoderma boninense is known as the most destructive disease of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia. Ganoderma could potentially reduce the market share of palm oil for Malaysia. Currently Malaysia produces about 50% of the world’s supply of palm oil. Early, accurate, and non-destructive diagnosis of Ganoderma fungal infection is critical for management of this disease. Early disease management of Ganoderma could also prevent great losses in production ... S. Liaghat, S. Mansor, H. Shafri, S. Meon, R. Ehsani, S. Azam, N. Noh

158. Economic and Environmental Impacts in Sugarcane Production to Meet the Brazilian Ethanol Demands by 2030: The Role of Precision Agriculture

The agreement signed at COP-21 reaffirms the vital compromise of Brazil with sugarcane and ethanol production. To meet the established targets, the ethanol production should be 54 billion liters in 2030. From the agronomic standpoint, two alternatives are possible; increase the planted area and/or agricultural yield. The present study aimed to evaluate the economic and environmental impacts in sugarcane production meeting the established targets in São Paulo state. In this context, wer... G.M. Sanches, T.F. Cardoso, M.F. Chagas, A.C. Luciano, D.G. Duft, P.S. Magalhães, H.C. Franco, A. Bonomi

159. Economic Evaluation of a Variable Lime Application Strategy Based on Soil pH Maps Derived from On-The-Go pH-Measurements under German Conditions

... A. Borchert, G. Recke, D. Dabbelt, D. Trautz, H. Olfs

160. Economic Evaluation of Automatic Heat Detection Systems in Dairy Farming

Although heat detection makes a relevant contribution to good reproduction performance of dairy cattle, available studies on the economic evaluations of automatic heat detection systems are limited. Therefore, the objective of this article is to provide an economic evaluation of using automatic heat detection. The effect of different heat detection rates on gross margin is modelled with SimHerd (SimHerd A/S, Denmark). The analysis considers all additional investment costs in automatic heat de... J. Pfeiffer, M. Gandorfer, J.F. Ettema

161. Economics of Swarm Bot Profitability for Cotton Harvest

Improved equipment management is one way which producers can increase profits. For cotton, this is especially true due to specialized equipment used for the sole purpose of harvest. Questions are raised regarding a way to either reduce or replace traditional cotton pickers. The main alternative being discussed is an investment in autonomous “swarm bots” to replace traditional equipment. Swarm bots are fully automated robots tasked with the responsibility of picking cotton one row ... J. Cullop, T.W. Griffin, G. Ibendahl, E. Barnes, J. Shockley, J. Devine

162. Effect of Composts Prepared from Municipal Solid Waste in the Agrochemical Properties of Serosem Soils of Uzbekistan

Optimizing soil fertility and agro-chemical soil properties are currently of great importance, since the content of humus and nutrients from year to year decreases. The reason for decline of soil fertility is the lack of organic fertilizers and use of crop rotation involving leguminous perennial herb. On the other hand a source of organic fertilizer can be municipal solid waste. Currently in the cities of Uzbekistan accumulated huge amount of solid waste whose disposal is an environmental nec... S. Kholikulov, S. Pardaev

163. Effect of Irrigation Scheduling Technique and Fertility Level on Corn Yield and Nitrogen Movement

Florida has more first magnitude springs that anywhere in the world. Most of these are located in north Florida where agricultural production is the primary basis for the economy. Irrigated corn has become a popular part of the crop rotation in recent years. This project is a study of a corn and peanut rotation investigating Best Management Practices (BMPs) of nitrogen fertility level (336, 246, 157 kg/ha) and irrigation strategies as follows:  (i) GROW, mimicking grower’s practice... M. Dukes, M. Zamora, D. Rowland

164. Effect of Urea Application through Drip Irrigation on Yield, Water and Nitrogen Use Efficiency of Summer Bitter Gourd

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) is one of the important vegetable crops grown during summer months in high lands of Lower Gangetic Plains.  Crop is very much responsive to water and nutrient but water is limiting in dry summer months.  Farmers generally adopt furrow irrigation and hand watering with pitcher for growing this crop.  Drip irrigation ... S. Goswami, S. Saha

165. Effective Use of a Debris Cleaning Brush for Mechanical Wild Blueberry Harvesting

Wild blueberries are an important horticultural crop native to northeastern North America. Management of wild blueberry fields has improved over the past decade causing increased plant density and leaf foliage. The majority of wild blueberry fields are picked mechanically using tractor mounted harvesters with 16 rotating rakes that gently comb through the plants. The extra foliage has made it more difficult for the cleaning brush to remove unwanted debris (leaf, stems, weeds, etc.) from the p... K. Esau, Q. Zaman, A. Farooque, A. Schumann

166. Effectiveness of UAV-Based Remote Sensing Techniques in Determining Lettuce Nitrogen and Water Stresses

This paper presents the results of the investigation on the effectiveness of UAV-based remote sensing data in determining lettuce nitrogen and water stresses. Multispectral images of the experimental lettuce plot at Cal Poly Pomona’s Spadra farm were collected from a UAV. Different rows of the lettuce plot were subject to different level of water and nitrogen applications. The UAV data were used in the determination of various vegetation indices. Proximal sensors used for ground-truthin... S. Bhandari, A. Raheja, M.R. Chaichi, R.L. Green, D. Do, M. Ansari, J.G. Wolf, A. Espinas, F.H. Pham, T.M. Sherman

167. Efficiency of Microbial Synthesis and the Flow of Nitrogen Compounds in Sheep Receiving Crambe Meal (Crambe Abyssinica Hochst) Replacing the Concentrade Crude Protein

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of increasing levels (0, 25, 50, 75%) of crude protein substitution of the concentrate by crude protein of crambe meal on microbial protein synthesis and the flow of microbial nitrogen compounds in sheep. Four rumen fistulated sheep (18 months and initial average body weight of 50 kg) were distributed in a 4 x 4 Latin square design. Diets were balanced to meet the requirements for minimum gains, containing approximately 14% crude protein ... K.K. De azevedo, D.M. Figueiredo, G.M. Dallago, J.A. Vieira, R.R. Silveira, L.D. Da silva, R.A. Santos, L.N. Rennó, G.B. Pacheco

168. eFields – An On-Farm Research Network to Inform Farm Recommendations

On-farm research has been traditionally used to provide local, field-scale information about agronomic practices. Farmers tend to have more confidence in on-farm research results because they are perceived to be more relevant to their farm operations compared to small plot research results. In recent years, more farmers have been conducting on-farm studies to help evaluate practices and input decisions.  Recent advances in precision agriculture technologies have stream-lined the on-... J.P. Fulton, E. Hawkins, R. Colley iii, K. Port, S. Shearer, A. Klopfenstein

169. Elimination of Spatial Variability Using Variable Rate Drip Irrigation (VRDI) in Vineyards

Vineyards worldwide are subjected to spatial variability, which can be exhibited in both low and high yield areas meaning that the vineyard is not achieving his full yield potential. In addition, the grapes quality is not uniformed leading to different wine qualities from the same plot. The assumption is that a variability in available water for the plant due to soil variability leads to the observed yield variability. A variable rate drip irrigation (VRDI) concept was developed to reduce suc... I. Nadav

170. Environmental Impacts of Precision Feeding Programs Applied in Brazilian Pig Production

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effect that switching from conventional to precision feeding systems during the growing-finishing phase would have on the potential environmental impact of Brazilian pig production. Standard life-cycle assessment procedures were used, with a cradle-to-farm gate boundary. The inputs and outputs of each interface of the life cycle were organized in a model. Grain production was independently characterized in the Central-West and South regions of Brazil,... C. Pomar, I. Andretta, L. Hauschild, M. Kipper, P.S. Pires

171. Estimates of Plant Number of Maize Crop at Seedling from High-Throughput UAV Imagery

The acquisition of such agricultural information as crop growth and output is of great significance for the development of modern agriculture. Using the image analysis is important to gain information on plant properties, health and phenotype. This study uses the unmanned aerial vehicle images about Maize breeding material collected in Beijing Xiao Tang mountain town in June 2017. The four color space transformation of RGB, HSV, YCbCr and L*A*B was used to divide the UAV image foreground (cro... S. Liu, G. Yang

172. Estimating Corn Biomass from RGB Images Acquired with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Above-ground biomass, along with chlorophyll content and leaf area index (LAI), is a key biophysical parameter for crop monitoring. Being able to estimate biomass variations within a field is critical to the deployment of precision farming approaches such as variable nitrogen applications. With unprecedented flexibility, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) allow image acquisition at very high spatial resolution and short revisit time. Accordingly, there has been an increasing interest i... K. Khun, P. Vigneault, E. Fallon, N. Tremblay, C. Codjia, F. Cavayas

173. Estimating Cotton Water Requirements Using Sentinel-2

Crop coefficient (Kc)-based estimation of crop water consumption is one of the most commonly used methods for irrigation management.  Spectral modeling of Kc is possible due to the high correlations between Kc and the crop phenologic development and spectral reflectance.  In this study, cotton evapotranspiration was measured in the field using several methods, including eddy covariance, surface renewal, and heat pulse.  Kc was estimated as the ratio between reference evapotrans... O. Rozenstein, N. Haymann, G. Kaplan , J. Tanny

174. Estimating Crop Leaf Area Index from Remotely Sensed Data: Scale Effects and Scaling Methods

Leaf area index (LAI) of crop canopies is significant for growth condition monitoring and crop yield estimation, and estimating LAI based on remote sensing observations is the normal way to assess regional crop growth. However, the scale effects of LAI make multi-scale observations harder to be fully and effectively utilized for LAI estimation. A systematical statistical str... Y. Dong , J. Wang , C. Li , G. Yang, X. Song, W. Huang

175. Estimating Litchi Canopy Nitrogen Content Using Simulated Multispectral Remote Sensing Data

This study aims at evaluating the performance of seven highly spatial resolution remote sensing data in litchi canopy nitrogen content estimation. The litchi canopy reflectance were collected by ASD field spectrometer. Then the canopy spectral data were resampled based on the spectral response functions of each satellite sensors (Geo-eye, GF-WFV1, Rapid-eye, WV-2, Landsat 8, WV-3, and Sentinel-2). The spectral indices in literature were derived based on the simulated data. Meanwhile, the succ... D. Li, H. Jiang, S. Chen, C. Wang

176. Estimating Soil Quality Indicators with Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy

Knowledge of within-field spatial variability in soil quality indicators is important to assess the impact of site-specific management on the soil. Standard methods for measuring these properties require considerable time and expense, so sensor-based approaches would b... R.J. Kremer, N.R. Kitchen, K.A. Sudduth, D.B. Myers

177. Estimating the Plant Stem Emerging Points (PSEPS) of Sugar Beets at Early Growth Stages