Precision agriculture system: 7 levels

Many agricultural enterprises around the world set themselves the goal of improving yields, increasing staff efficiency, and solving problems associated with unfavorable climatic zones. As a result – to become leaders in their industry. A set of these reasons prompted most of them to consider an innovative technology which is the precision agriculture system.

Natural resources, climate, rich soils – Ukraine has all of these. These factors create favorable conditions for achieving high results in agriculture.

FRFRENDT LLC is one of the few companies in the agricultural sector that specializes in works that result in a smoothly running precision agriculture system for farmers of our country.

During the period of its existence, through trial and error, achieved peaks and overcome difficulties, the specialists of our company have created their concept of precision agriculture implementation, which consists of 7 primary levels. Let’s consider them in a bit more detail.

Shall we start with an audit?

An audit of the machinery is conducted to determine which control systems can be installed on the equipment of a particular farm. To do this, we create a register of existing machinery and provide information on its functionality. Our engineers conduct a detailed inspection of the equipment and also inspect the precision agriculture systems (if available). They determine the necessary retrofitting according to the terms of reference. Employees of FRIENDT LLC train the farm staff – agriculturists, machine operators, engineers, and employees of other specialties.

The equipment audit algorithm consists of the following stages:

1. Negotiation.
2. Specialist’s arrival, familiarization with the farm.
3. Working with equipment.
4. Determination of the operational condition of the equipment.
5. Work report, recommendations, staff training.

After the successful staff training, our specialists recommend the transition to 7 levels which make up the precision agriculture system.

How to implement the precision agriculture system?

Level 1 – Basic

Before you install any, even the simplest precision agriculture system, you have to create electronic field contours to determine the actual boundaries and the size of the field with RTK accuracy (error up to 2 cm).

Parallel driving systems are where the way to precision agriculture begins. The equipment allows machine operators to get used to working with navigation equipment and to analyze all the advantages of satellite technologies.

For working with guidance and auto-steering systems, field guides and navigation lines are created and the directions of operations for planning and controlling the directions of movement of equipment during the task performance are determined. Already at this stage, you can connect software for data storage and analysis. This information is received from field terminals, equipment, drones, smartphones, and other equipment.

Level 2 – Must-Have

The precision agriculture system contains a stage that cannot be ignored as it is MUST-HAVE. Additional equipment is installed at this level. You also need to unlock the function of section control of the sprayers for the effective application of fertilizers and crop protection products. The same function can be done on seeders to eliminate competition between crops and material saving.

Here, technological paths are created to minimize trampling and increase the culture of technological operations.

Level 3 – Crop Management

One of the tasks on the way to precision agriculture which occurs in 100% of farmers is work quality control. Even with the cutting-edge technology and equipment, technological operations can lack efficiency if, for example, the following parameters are not observed:

● specified tillage depth;

● fertilizer and CPP application rate;

● performance time.

It is also necessary to take the weather conditions into account.

With poor-quality operations, it is impossible to make adequate analytics and then develop precision agriculture technologies. Work quality control is the foundation on which any technology is created.

Also at this stage, regular agrochemical surveys of fields are introduced to analyze their potential and to adjust the fertilizer application rates. Soil compaction is checked and its effect on the yield is determined.

Level 4 – Precision Agriculture

The main reason for yield decrease is impractical fertilization. To fully use the potential of high-yield field zones and not to waste fertilizers on areas that will not bring the desired results, additional equipment is installed and the variable-rate fertilizer application function is unlocked. To do this, task maps are created and a variable-rate application method is developed.

To determine the most productive areas, a yield mapping system is installed on the harvesters. This system has optical sensors for calculating the collected crops and their moisture content.

Level 5 – Crop Monitoring

Data collection and analysis is the most important thing in production. Without detailed regular field surveying using satellite monitoring, UAVs, or scouting, it is impossible to give an operational expert assessment of the condition of the fields.

Most farmers believe that the main reason for poor yields is unfavorable weather. To track their impact on the situation in the fields, they installed meteorological monitoring sensors, for example, OneSoil.

Level 6 – Advanced

At this level, an enterprise should have digital models of its fields and statistics and perform analytics. Then managers make the right effective decisions that will increase the profitability of production. To do this, Farm Management, ERP, and supervisory platforms (for accounting and production process monitoring) are installed. All the management is carried out through portals where you can analyze data from field terminals and plan the work.

The reward for this work is full control over all the possible factors and processes, maximum automation of the preparation of working solutions, and minimization of the human factor influence. The result is a planned yield with minimal costs.

Level 7 – Zone Management

To adjust the technology, homogeneous zones of the field are allocated. The potential of the zones and the economic feasibility of technologies of calculating the economic efficiency of each site are determined. Variable-rate sowing is introduced to use the biological potential of the seed material.

If your farm has all the above, congratulations! You are in a narrow circle of enterprises which is less than 1% of all the agricultural companies. You can safely implement technologies for variable-rate sowing and fertilizing, as well as reduce their consumption by 15-20%. At the same time, the programmed yield will not decrease.

Programmers jokingly call this level the “God level”. Our team likes this definition.

So what is the conclusion?

If you use the “7 levels” system, any farm (50 hectares and larger) will be able to determine its place, analyze all the aspects that will allow or make it impossible to implement precision agriculture successfully. This approach will help save farmers years, as well as millions of dollars/euros/other available currency.

Each enterprise is at a certain level of readiness for the introduction of new technologies. Incorrect assessment of the level and attempts to go to the next level without passing the previous one leads to loss of time, finance, and qualified staff, as well as failure to meet the deadlines for technological operations that the precision agriculture system contains.

We are sure that the success formula is the right sequence of actions!

Let’s act together!