Management zone creation
Trusting the crop to show field variability we can create management zones from a variety of sensors to allow nutrient control wothout excessive sampling.
Yieldmapping is the essential management tool that will allow you to; asses level of variation, judge success of precision farming project, create management zones and accuratly measure offtake of vital nutrient supplies. Without knowing extent and stability of variation it is difficult to devise and asses a suitable precision farming program. It has been found that the soil P & K status is more closely linked (inversly) to yield (crop offtake) than any other measurable factor. The yield map gives you a nutrient offtake map for replacement and naturally occuring management zones, to be used as the basis for a smart sampling solution and potentially much more. The smart sampling concept uses a combination of crop and soil sensors alongside farmer knowledge to predict natural variation and create zones of naturally similar soils and agronomic histories. This then allows great accuracy when measuring soil nutrient status without excessive costly sampling. Sensors used include weighcells in yieldmapping, canopy sensors such as CropCircle 4 and the EMI soil conductivity scanner 8. These sensors and maps can also be useful for variable rate seeding 8. All the maps can be managed in house using desktop software or through soilessentials office services.
