Research Accomplishment Reports 2007

Precision Agriculture: Precision Resource Management - Phase II

T.S. Stombaugh, T.G. Mueller, R.A. Fleming
Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

 

Project Description

Economic and environmental pressures are causing natural resource management, land use planners and decision-makers and agricultural producers to seek more competitive ways of managing scarce agricultural and natural resources.  The objectives of this project are to develop and advance geo-spatial technologies in support of agricultural systems in Kentucky, land use planning and decision-making and natural resource management. 

This project seeks to develop management approaches using GIS, GPS and VRT in combination to improve agricultural productivity and profitability while conserving and protecting the natural resource base.  This project has ten subcomponent outputs that include:

1)  merging crop growth models with parameters that have known spatial patterns to better predict and understand variability in growth and yield;

2) integration of spatial datasets of soil parameters (commercial grid soil sample data) and yield maps in refining lime and fertilizer recommendations;

3) defining soil resource management areas causing watershed P loss;

4) development and evaluation of a CAN-bus sprayer for reduction in off-target agricultural chemical application;

5) precision placement of granular fertilizers via real-time feedback control;

6) improving soil survey data with geospatial technologies;

7) utilizing geospatial data to predict aquatic conditions as assessed by SVAP from watershed geomorphic and land cover characteristics;

8) performing gap analysis on the change in Landsat thematic mapper imagery in the past decade to assess vertebrate species habitat changes;

9) applying satellite technology to managing a colonizing large carnivore in Eastern Kentucky; and

10) tracking changes in livestock antibiotic levels and antibiotic resistant bacteria numbers along topohydrosequences in western Kentucky agroecosystems.  

Impact

Significant impacts of work conducted to date are enumerated in accordance with the sub-project areas above.  

1)  Spatial patterns of leaf area index, NDVI, and soil water are proving to be a valuable basis for predicting yield.  Spatial statistics (Fourier transform) clearly detected yield response to applied nitrogen while Fisher randomized plot design statistics indicated no significant yield response. 

2) This research has important implications for the question as to whether Kentucky’s cropland owner/managers can reduce risk and improve overall productivity by delineating fields, or portions of fields, where soils exhibit greater potential for response to variable rate P, K, and pH management, thereby redefining Kentucky’s future fertilizer and lime recommendations. 

3) Findings of this investigation should produce a functional hierarchical spatial classification system that both defines and delimits high risk, “critical source areas” for runoff-borne P that could be used by stakeholders (landowners, policymakers, regulators) interested in guiding and prioritizing implementation of practices designed to reduce P (and potentially other pollutants) impairment of surface waters in rural watersheds.  The research results have important implications regarding whether management of environmental problems might be done at the watershed scale, causing Kentucky’s land owners/managers to reduce environmental risk by delineating fields, or portions of fields, for BMP application.  

4 and 5) Providing CAN-based control technology is adopted in Kentucky, it will be possible for agricultural producers to reduce the application of pesticides to agricultural lands by up to 15%.  Perhaps a more significant impact of this work will be the preservation of vegetated waterways and buffer strips.  Current technology limits the producer’s ability to control spray application to a resolution of approximately 40 ft.  Additionally, it will be possible to maintain application rates to within 5% of target rates across the effective application width of the boom/spreader therefore improving the efficacy of the product being applied.  It is estimated that application rates across the boom/spread width may vary as much as +/- 50% from the target rate while turning.

6) The use of spatial technologies could make the identification of conservation areas by planners more efficient and accurate thereby revolutionizing the way land-use planning is conducted in the United States. 

9) Argos-transmitted GPS data were critical in increasing sample sizes sufficiently to make seasonal and diel spatial analyses possible.  These data represent the foundation of information that will drive management decisions by the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources with regard to habitat and landscape connectivity. 

10) Results from the experiment showed that soils contained bacteria that are resistant to streptogramin antibiotics, and that the gene encoding for resistance is readily transferred to a common biosolid waste pathogen, particularly at certain positions along topohydrosequences.

Publications

Grove, J.H., and E.M. Pena-Yewtukhiw. The potential of “precision” recommendations for site-specific phosphorus, potassium and lime applications. p.689-695. In J.V. Stafford (ed.) Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Precision Agriculture. Skiathos, Greece. 3-6 June 2007. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen, Netherlands.

Grove, J.H., and E.M. Pena-Yewtukhiw. 2007. Lime, phosphorus and potassium redistribution with 1-ha grid sampling: A physiographic perspective. New Orleans, LA. Agron. Abstr. 99:CDROM P34017.

Lee, B. D. A Pilot Habitat Change Characterization in Kentucky: 1992 to 2001. United States Geological Survey GAP Analysis Conference. Asheville, North Carolina. September 11-14, 2007.

Unger, D. E.  2007.  Resource Selection of a Recolonizing Black Bear Population.  Ph.D. dissertation.  University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.