Adrian Hunt is a crop scientist at Plant and Food Research.
He recently completed a PhD at the University of Tasmania, investigating Pre-Harvest and Post-Harvest factor effects on the quality of onion bulbs exported to Europe for counter seasonal supply. He now works across the vegetable and arable sectors to improve yield, profitability and environmental outcomes.
Together with colleagues Joanna Sharp, Paul Johnstone and Bruce Searle, Adrian has been investigating the value proposition for variable rate fertiliser application.
The technology to deliver variable rate fertiliser in an automated manner has advanced substantially in recent years. This has been aided by new or adapted spreading technologies coupled with location awareness using GPS (Global Positioning System). It is now technically possible to distribute fertilisers in a wide range of spatial patterns within a paddock, however the value proposition of variable rate fertiliser application is not thoroughly understood.
The Plant and Food team looked at the difference in productivity, profitability and potential environmental impact of a range of spatial management scales.
Based on a sampling grid of 105 points in a Hawke’s Bay paddock and used mineral N and a N mineralisation assay to quantify the underlying variability in N processes/cycling within the paddock they “grew” both irrigated and unirrigated maize in the crop simulation model APSIM Next Generation for the 105 sampling locations for 35 growing seasons, using long term weather data.
Adrian will present this work and the results at the LandWISE 2017 Conference in Havelock North.
The Society of Precision Agriculture (SPAA) is a non-profit and independent membership based group formed in Australia in 2002 to promote the development and adoption of precision agriculture (PA) technologies.
I attended the SPAA expo in March this year which was a grower focused day to present the latest tools and services available to growers. All speakers were service providers or users of the technology as opposed to researchers presenting their studies. This made for a day of very applied learning.
A common theme of the day was that tools selected had to deliver a positive return; i.e. they had to earn their keep. This was very good to hear as I feared I would be seen as a laggard to comment on the lack of variable rate and prescription maps. Most of the speakers identified a problem and the use of tools to find a solution.
There was also a range of farm types and again the message was any one can use PA concepts and you do not need to have high tech tools to practice PA.
The work with Near Infrared, Infrared and Short Wavelength InfraRed has come a long way and the work being done by Dr Ian Yule from Massey University leads the way. Of special interest was a camera manufacturer who could allow you to choose which bands you required and build a camera to suit at an affordable cost, putting this technology in everyone’s hands.
So, if we can do the research around what we want to sense and which wavelength it requires we could get real time data to enable prescriptions without the need to ground truth. This would be the next major leap forward in PA tools.
Anthony (Tony) Davoren is a Director of Aqualinc with responsibility for the HydroServices business unit that provides irrigation and environmental management services; soil moisture, and water level and water meter monitoring.
Tony’s expertise in and knowledge of soils and hydraulic properties, irrigation systems and design, and crop water demand has been applied and enhanced over the last 35 years working in these fields.
Tony says several questions need to be asked and honest answers or solutions given:
Are we and you ready?
What do we need?
Is automating irrigation management wise or the right solution?
Are we or you ready?
When considering automating irrigation management, both the provider and the user must be an “innovators”; i.e. they must be in the top 2.5% of the industry. It may be that some “early adopters”, the next 13.5% of the industry, might be ready for the technology and its application to automate irrigation management.
What do we need?
Because it will be the innovators who adopt and field prove any technologies, these technologies must be robust and proven with a sound scientific backing. Innovators will identify the financial benefits of the automation, which needs:
Well-designed irrigation systems
High uniformity irrigation systems
Well maintained irrigation systems
Precise soil moisture and/or crop monitoring systems
Interface “model” to irrigation controller
Are these all in place?
Is automation wise or the right solution?
Tony established HydroServices providing on-farm irrigation management services based on in situ soil moisture measurements in Canterbury, Pukekohe, Waikato, Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, Wairarapa and Central Otago. During this he provided specialist soil moisture monitoring for Foundation for Arable Research, LandWISE, Crown Research Institutes, Regional Councils, Clandeboye Dairy Factory and others.
Tony completed his PhD in Engineering Science at Washington State University, Pullman, USA.
Remotely sensed hyperspectral data provides the possibility to categorise and quantify the farm landscape in great detail, supplementing local expert knowledge and adding confidence to decisions.
In his presentation, Tommy will explain how hyperspectral aerial imagery is being used to classify various components of the hill country farming landscape. He focuses on development of techniques to identify and classify various vegetation components including water, tracks/soil, Manuka, scrub, gum, poplar and other tree species.
Tommy’s PhD has been funded by Ravensdown and MPI as part of the PGP project “pioneering to precision”. A background in agronomy and 15 years’ experience in golf course design, construction and project management has developed an array of real-world skills that has helped shape his research. His goal is for his work to produce tangible benefits for hill country farmers.
The NZ Soil Management Field Days offer a two day field aimed at all areas of crop production that needs to cultivate the soil.
The two Days aim to bring together a broad selection of machinery companies keen to demonstrate their products both new and existing.Also present will be new technology looking to improve our understanding of the soil and better ways to control weeds and disease.
Catering on site will be available for the two days with coffee and hot food. Upon registration the first 250 entrants will receive a free event hat.
On the first afternoon FAR will give three presentations on:
Research outcomes for soil management and environmental issues
Cultivation techniques long term trial Northern Crop research site
Soil quality results from focus on potatoes project and then these will be repeated in in the morning of the second day.
Once again many thanks to all the main sponsors and exhibitors and to Sundale Farms for the use of the site.
This is an opportunity to see new technology and techniques from a broad base of suppliers from throughout New Zealand.
The Pukekohe area has a unique 12 months of the year growing potential, a wide variety of crops grown, and some of the biggest grower operations in the country. Within New Zealand there are many companies with new ideas and great equipment which don’t get seen.
Special note to suppliers and potential sponsors
Contact the organisers to ask any questions, they are hoping to accommodate as many companies as possible and expect growers from all over the country to come.
Now in year two of our OnionsNZ SFF project, we have trials at the MicroFarm and monitoring sites at three commercial farms in Hawke’s Bay and three more in Pukekohe.
2015-16
A summary of Year 1 is on our website. A key aspect was testing a range of sensors and camera systems for assessing crop size and variability. Because onions are like needles poking from the ground, all sensors struggled especially when plants were small. This is when we want to know about the developing crop, as it is the time we make decisions and apply management.
By November our sensing was more satisfactory. At this stage we captured satellite, UAV, smartphone and GreenSeeker data and created a series of maps.
We used the satellite image to create canopy maps and identify zones. We sampled within the zones at harvest, and used the raltioship between November canopy and February yield to create yield maps and profit maps.
Yield assessments show considerable variation, limits imposed by population, growth of individual plants, or both
We also developed relationships between photographs of ground cover, laboratory measurements of fresh weight and leaf area and the final crop yield.
In reviewing the season’s worth of MicroFarm plot measurements and noticed there were areas where yield reached its potential, areas where yield was limited by population (establishment), some where yield was limited by canopy growth (development) and some by both population and development.
This observation helped us form a concept of Management Action Zones, based on population and canopy development assessments.
Management Action Zones – If population is low work for better establishment next season. If plants are small see if there is something that can be done this season
2016-17
Our aims for Year 2 are on the website. We set out to confirm the relationships we found in Year 1.
This required developing population expectations and determining estimates of canopy development as the season progressed, against which field measurement could be compared.
We had to select our “zones” before the crop got established as we did a lot of base line testing of the soil. So our zones were chosen based on paddock history and a fair bit of guess work. Really, we need to be able to identify zones within an establishing or developing crop, then determine what is going on so we can try to fix it as quickly as possible.
In previous seasons we experimented with smartphone cameras and image processing to assess canopy size and relate that to final yields. We are very pleased that photographs of sampling plots processed using the “Canopeo” app compare very well with Leaf Area Index again this season.
Through the season we tracked crop development in the plots and using plant counts and canopy cover assessments to try and separate the effects of population (establishment) and soil or other management factors.
We built a web calculator to do the maths, aiming for a tool any grower or agronomist can use to aid decision making. The web calculator was used to test our theories about yield prediction and management zones.
ASL Software updated the “CoverMap” smartphone application and we obtained consistent results from it. The app calculates canopy ground cover and logs data against GPS position in real time. Because we have confidence that ground cover from image processing is closely related to Leaf Area Index we are working to turn our maps into predictions of final yields.
Maps of canopy cover created from the CoverMap smartphone application show significant variability across the paddock. Canopy increase is seen over time in two maps created a week apart
The current season’s MicroFarm crop is certainly variable. Some is deliberate: we sat the irrigator over some areas after planting to simulate heavy rain events, and we have a poorly irrigated strip. We know some relates to different soil and cover crop histories.
But some differences are unexpected and so far reasons unexplained.
Wide variation within the area new to onions does not follow artificial rain or topographic drainage patterns. This photo is of the area shown far right in the cover maps above.
Together with Plant and Food Research we have been taking additional soil samples to try and uncover the causes of patchiness.
We’ve determined one factor is our artificial rain storm, some crop loss is probably runoff from that and some is historic compaction. We’ve even identified where a shift in our GPS AB line has left 300mm strips of low production where plants are on last year’s wheel tracks!
But there is a long way to go before this tricky crop gives up its secrets.
This project is in collaboration with Plant and Food Research and is funded by OnionsNZ and the MPI Sustainable Farming Fund.
Ballance AgriNutrients and BASF Crop Protection have continued their sponsorship of the LandWISE MicroFarm for 2016-17 and 2017-18. The MicroFarm is hosted by the Centre for Land and Water which provides fields, sheds, equipment and the Green Shed venue for our meetings and seminars. We greatly appreciate their very significant contributions which make the operation possible.
Mark Redshaw put hours into getting the MicroFarm up and running and spending much of his free-time spraying and monitoring onions for two seasons. Now we have our own small sprayer we have taken that task over, but remain most grateful to Mark.
After a number of years of constant pea crops, we are having a break. Our main focus this season has been on onions, crop variability and its drivers. We have plenty of variability, but which factors are driving still proves elusive.
Aerial view of the MicroFarm taken by DJI Phantom showing replicated soil amendment plots on right, flagged replicated plots in onion zones on left, and at far left drought stressed onion beds, the reason we extended the irrigator
We do know topography and drainage are critical factors but they do not explain all the variation we are seeing. To assess their impact, we deliberately applied “heavy rain” to some areas and have been comparing these with areas not subjected to a hard40+mm rain event before emergence.
Artificial heavy rain event applied after planting and before emergence
We prepared an OptiSurface plan two years ago but did not implement it as we were keen to explore variation in our onions trials. Perhaps it is time to act on our own advice!
Topomap created from a Trimble RTK GPS survey shows relative elevations. Yellow highest, purple lowest. Surface flow analysis of topographic maps like this show where water can become trapped and pond.OptiSurface analysis shows where water will pond. In this image, the beds are assumed to be 100mm high. The brown areas will drain, blue and purple areas will have ponding – pale blue least, dark purple most.
The other main crop this season is sweetcorn. We are hosting a series of variety trials and are assessing a soil amendment product to see if it offers an economic advantage to growers.
To assess the soil amendment we set up a six plot replicated trial – with and without the treatment. We randomly split plots to avoid bias, and are taking crop development data through the season. At harvest we will determine paddock yield and the recovery rate of kernels in each plot.
A randomised six plot trial layout for assessing the effect of a soil amendment on a sweetcorn crop. Yellow lines imposed on aerial image from consumer UAV.
A version of this article previously appeared in The Grower
Dan Bloomer has been travelling in Australia and Europe asking, “How ready are robots for farmers and how ready are farmers for robots?”
Notable areas of active research and development globally are scouting, weeding and fruit picking. Success requires machines that can determine and follow a route traversing whatever terrain it must, capture information, identify and selectively remove weeds, and identify, pick and transport fruit. They have to sense, analyse, plan and act.
Robotics is widespread in industries such as car manufacturing that have the exactly the same task being repeated over and over again. With possible exception of robotic milking, farm operations are not like that. Virtually every single case is unique with unique responses needed.
Many groups around the world are looking at robotic weeding . There are many items needing attention. How do we tell weeds from crop plants? Can we do that fast enough and reliably enough to make a robot commercially viable on-farm? Once identified, how do we optimise robotic arm movement to best attack a patch of weeds?
The Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) at the University of Sydney is well known for its field robots such as the solar powered Ladybird. The new generation Ladybird is known as Rippa, and is currently undergoing endurance testing. Look on YouTube for ACFR videos and you’ll even see SwagBot moving around rolling hill country.
A key theme for Rob Fitch and colleagues is Active Perception: perception being what we can detect with what accuracy and confidence; active meaning in real time and including planning actions. They invest heavily in developing mathematics to get fast results. And they are succeeding.
Using Intel’s RealSense structured light camera it takes them less than half a second to identify and precisely locate groups of apples on a trellis. Within that time they also calculate exactly where to place the camera to get a second confirming view.
Smart maths allow ACFR scientists to capture 3D images and identify and locate apples in less than half a second
Cheryl McCarthy and colleagues at the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) are conducting a range of research projects that integrate autonomous sensing and control with on-farm operations to robotically manage inputs within a crop. Major projects include automation for weed spot spraying, adaptive control for irrigation optimisation, and remote crop surveillance using cameras and remotely piloted aircraft.
Now Cheryl is using UAVs to capture photos of crops, stitching the pictures to get a whole paddock image, then splitting it up again to efficiently identify and locate individual plants and weeds. This is enabling her to create accurate maps some other weed destroying robot can use.
Research at the University of Southern Queensland investigates UAVs to scout paddocks combined with image stitching and analysis for interpretation to create maps of weeds for later treatment
SwarmFarm founders, Andrew and Jocie Bate grow cereals and pulses near Emerald. Spray-fallow is used to conserve water in this dryland environment and WeedSeeker® and Weedit® technologies reduce chemical use to a very small percentage of traditional broadcast application.
4WD SwarmFarm robots carrying WeedSeeker technology cover the paddock spraying only living weeds
With large areas, most growers move to bigger machinery to maximise labour efficiency. This has a number of adverse effects including significant soil damage and inability to work small areas or work efficiently around obstacles such as trees.
SwarmFarm chose robots as practical light weight equipment. They reason that several small machines working together reduce soil impact and have the same work rate as one big machine. Andrew estimates that adoption of 8 m booms versus 34 m booms could increase the effective croppable area in Queensland by 2%.
Are these robots ready for farmers? Are farmers ready for these robots?
Only SwarmFarm has multiple machines currently working on farm in Australia. They are finalising a user interface that will allow non-graduate engineers (smart farmers) to manage the machines.
The question that remains is, “Why would I buy a specialised machine when I can put a driver on a cheaper conventional tractor or higher work rate sprayer and achieve the same?”
Is it the same?
Travel to Australia was supported by a Trimble Foundation Study Grant
A visit to Denmark in search of farm robotics expanded to include wide span tractors, controlled traffic farming, growing Christmas trees and farm nutrient management plans and audits.
Automation of the agricultural sector has EU and government attention and funding. Despite an influx of refugees and workers from Eastern Europe, the focus is filling a labour void in the agricultural sector.
The new USD Tek Centre housing an engineering research group of around 500 people at the University of Southern Denmark (USD) illustrates the investment.
The Tek Centre at University of Southern Denmark illustrates the investment Europe is making in agritech development
Research institutes, municipalities and government are working on a proposal to turn a nearby commercial airport into a specialised unpiloted aerial system (UAS/UAV) facility.
USD is developing unmanned aerial systems to distribute beneficial insects to grapevines. Ground application results in losses as many beneficials cannot climb to colonise the target plant. The technical hurdle is UAS control – needing to control flight to release the beneficials from 200-500 mm above the canopy.
USD Robotic specialist Kjeld Jensen promotes open source software as key to increasing the pace of development. Having access to standards, stable architecture and software libraries means researchers can focus on new things rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.
An innovation hub in Struer was established in a facility donated by Ericsson Communications when they shifted research and development from Denmark. It is now home to about 150 technologists in a number of start-up companies.
Resident ConPleks Innovation develops automation technology for other manufacturers (for example Intelligent Marking and MinkPapir). The availability of such support makes it much easier for traditional companies to enter the field of robotics.
At the Agro Food Park in Aarhus, AgroIntelli has a focus on autonomy for weed control in organic productions systems, a movement apparently stronger in Europe than in New Zealand. This start-up grew out of a disbanded Kongskilde R&D group.
Safety of unmanned systems is critical. All the above are involved in “SAFE”, a project that brings together major agricultural machinery manufacturers and universities to develop advanced sensors, perception algorithms, rational behaviours for semi-automated tractors and implements and finally autonomous robots.
Hans Henrik Pedersen is well known to LandWISE members for his work on controlled traffic farming and gantry tractors. At Kjeldahl Farms on Samso we saw the prototype 9m ASA-Lift gantry. At 20+tonnes plus another 20+ tonnes with a hopper of onions it’s not a small machine. It seems version two will be different, but development funding is yet to be found.
The ASA-Lift 9m wide span gantry tractor at Kjeldahl Farms
At the Aarhus Agro Food Park Dan Bloomer delivered a presentation on Precision Agriculture in New Zealand to 70 Dutch agronomists and agrichem representatives touring Denmark. An afternoon field trip visited a biogas generator on a dairy farm and a facility for high quality Christmas tree production.
Specialist equipment for commercial production of Christmas trees fits narrow rows and automates labour intensive tasks
Other presentations covered the operation of SEGES, a farmer owned agricultural research and extension organisation performing more than 1,000 field trials every year in partnership with universities, government departments, businesses and trade associations.
SEGES covers all aspects of farming and farm management – from crop production, the environment, livestock farming and organic production to finance, tax legislation, IT architecture, accounting, HR, training and conservation.
A lot of work involves nutrient management. Denmark introduced nitrogen regulations in 1994. We are only now at a similar position. Caps introduced to stop leaching halved losses by 2014 by which time the nitrogen cap was about 25% lower than the economic optimum. With most benefit coming from improved handling of animal manures, the cap is now being lifted.
All Danish farmers must have nutrient management plans with budgets and fertiliser purchase documentation and application records. They are must report annually, work mostly being done by about 3,500 consultants. All fertiliser sales are reported to the Environment Agency so farm reports can be audited.
Dan’s travel was supported by a Trimble Foundation Study Grant
A desire to reduce soil compaction and avoid high and inefficient use of chemicals and energy inspired Steve Tanner and Aurelien Demaurex to found eco-Robotix in Switzerland.
Their solution is a light-weight fully solar-powered weeding robot, a 2 wheel drive machine with 2D camera vision and basic GPS. Two robotic arms position herbicide nozzles or a mechanical device for precision weed control.
Steve Tanner lab testing the exoRobotix vision and robotic weed control system
The ecoRobotix design philosophy is simplicity and value: avoiding batteries cuts weight, technology requirements and slashes capital costs. It is a step towards their vision of cheap autonomous machines swarming around the farm.
Bought by small farms, Naio Technologies’ Oz440 is a small French robot designed to mechanically weed between rows. The robots are left weeding while the farmer spends time on other jobs or serving customers. Larger machines for vegetable cropping and viticulture are in development.
Prototypes V1, V2 and V3; precursors to the Naio Oz440 show the steps in a robot’s development
Naio co-founder Gaetan Severac notes Oz440 has no GPS, relying instead on cameras and LiDAR range finders to identify rows and navigate. These are small machines with a total price similar to a conventional agricultural RTK-GPS system, so alternatives are essential.
Tech companies have responded and several “RTK-GPS” systems are now available under $US1000. Their accuracy and reliability is not known!
Thorvald an example of research collaboration: Norwegian University robot being automated at University of Lincoln show the common design of four wheel steer and four wheel drive
Broccoli is one of the world’s largest vegetable crops and is almost entirely manually harvested, which is costly. Leader Tom Duckett says robotic equipment being developed at the University of Lincoln in England is as good as human pickers at detecting broccoli heads of the right size, especially if the robot can pick through the night. With identification in hand, development is now on mechanical cutting and collecting.
In 1996, Tillett and Hague Technologies demonstrated an autonomous roving machine selectively spraying individual cabbages. Having done that, they determined that tractors were effective and concentrated on automating implements. They are experts in vision systems and integration with row and plant identification and machinery actuation, technology embedded in Garford row crop equipment.
Parrish Farms has their own project adapting a Garford mechanical to strip spray between onion rows. Nick Parrish explained that Black Grass control was difficult, and as available graminicides strip wax off onions boom spraying prevents use of other products for up to two weeks.
Route planning to avoid hazards and known obstacles
Laser range finder to sense objects and define them as obstacles
Wide area safety curtain sensing ground objects at 2m
Dead man’s handle possibly via smartphone
Collapsible bumper as a physical soft barrier that activates Stop
Big Red Buttons anyone close can see and use to stop the machine
Machines that are small, slow and light minimise inertia
“Hands free hectare” is Harper Adams University’s attempt to grow a commercial crop using open source software and commercially available equipment in an area no-one enters.
Harper Adams research to develop a robotic strawberry harvester is notable for the integration of genetics for varieties with long stalks, a growing system that has plants off the ground, and the robotic technologies to identify, locate and assess the ripeness of individual berries and pick them touching only the peduncle (stalk).
So what have I learned about farm robotics?
People believe our food production systems have to change
Farm labour is in short supply throughout the western world
Machines can’t get bigger as the soil can’t support that
Robotics has huge potential but when
Safety is a key issue but manageable
There is huge investment in research at universities, but also in industry
It’s about rethinking the whole system not replacing the driver
There are many technologies available, but probably not the mix you want for your application.
As Simon Pearson at the National Centre for Food Manufacturing says, “It’s a Frankenstein thing, this agrobotics. There are all sorts of great bits available but you have to seek them out and stitch them together yourself to make the creature you want.”
Dan’s travel was supported by a Trimble Foundation Study Grant
Adrian Hunt is a crop scientist at Plant and Food Research.
Anthony (Tony) Davoren is a Director of Aqualinc with responsibility for the HydroServices business unit that provides irrigation and environmental management services; soil moisture, and water level and water meter monitoring. 
Tommy Cushnahan is a PhD student at Massey University within the 
Now in year two of our 
