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Optimising Nitrogen Use in Cereal Crops Using Site-Specific Management Classes and Crop Reflectance Sensors
B. Whelan, M. Fajardo
Sydney Institute of Agriculture, School of Life Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia

The relative cost of Nitrogen (N) fertilisers in a cropping input budget, the 33% Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) seen in global cereal grain production and the potential environmental costs of over-application are leading to changes in the application rates and timing of N fertiliser. Precision agriculture (PA) provides tools for producers to achieve greater synchrony between N supply and crop N demand. To help achieve these goals this research has explored the use of management classes derived from historic field data and in-season crop reflectance sensors in an attempt to quantify, and manage the effects of, spatial and temporal variation in N uptake. This simple study combines the two techniques to try and quantify in-season variation in N requirements, and furthermore attempts to improve the predictive ability of in-season yield prediction functions through the inclusion of historic soil and yield data sets. Experiments from two example fields are used to quantify seasonal variations in N using in-season reflectance data. A process was designed to build site-specific N requirement algorithms from reflectance and historic input data. The variation in historic yields and current season reflectance indices across potential management classes indicates that the magnitude of variation in plant N requirements is sufficient to implement management classes in conjunction with in-season crop reflectance sensors. Furthermore the development of modified site-specific yield prediction functions according to management classes built from soil ECa data, previous yield observations and calibrated yield prediction functions significantly enhanced yield prediction accuracy. These improved in-season yield predictions were used to construct N application strategies that proved more cost effective than traditional approaches. The combination of site-specific historic data and in-season reflectance information shows promise for the development of N application decision support to improve NUE in both economic and environmental terms.

Keyword: nitrogen, precision agriculture, crop reflectance sensors, management classes