Senior Development Horticulturist, Horticulture and Forestry Science Agri-Science Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Queensland vegetable growers and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries have been collaborating to adapt precision agriculture technologies into vegetable systems for the last two years. This work has focused on 3 key areas: assessing spatial variability, implementing variable rate technologies and yield monitoring. Significant spatial variability has been successfully identified in Queensland vegetable systems using a range of crop sensing technologies (e.g Satellite, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and tractor mounted Greenseeker®).
Ground truthing the underlying causal factors of this variability has proven critical to enable informed decision making to manage block uniformity. These ground truthing activities have focused on EM38 soil mapping to understand any inherent soil variability, mapping of cut and fill areas, crop sensing imagery, strategic soil sampling programs and monitoring pest, diseases, irrigation and drainage.
While within block biomass and yield variability can be inferred from crop sensing data, it is ideal to measure yield itself. The measurement of yield variability is currently being trialed in carrot, sweet potato and potato production in Queensland using retrofitted load-cell based, geo-referenced yield monitors. Primarily, this provides growers with a quantitative data set of the spatial and temporal nature of yield variances and the cost of lost yield potential.
Additionally, it allows growers to cost benefit analyses of potential management interventions to improve under performing areas and make decisions as to whether these are likely to be cost effective. This presentation will highlight the undertake outcomes from a range of variable rate applications and how multiple data layers can be used to manage crops to address spatial variability.