A pest trap for orchards by manufacturer Semios. In-season scouting is the mother’s milk of any full-service agronomy program. It’s the component of crop production that validates the experience of individuals who know and understand the land, the crops, the climate, and the pests, as well as the interactions of all of them — and […]

A robot under development at the University of Illinois automates the labor-intensive process of crop phenotyping, enabling scientists to scan crops and match genetic data with the highest-yielding plants. Agricultural and biological engineering professor Girish Chowdhary, right, is working on the $3.1 million project, along with postdoctoral researcher Erkan Kayacan. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A semiautonomous […]

We are entering a very exciting time in agriculture. With so many great software platforms and data collection tools we are on the cusp of unlocking some really deep, profound information and management techniques like we’ve only dreamed of before. Being able to stack several layers of data on top of each other begins to […]

Another new year is upon us! And I’m certain I speak for many in the agricultural world when I say that very few people in the industry are probably glad 2016 is done with, for a variety of reasons. But let’s not dwell upon the past and instead look to the future.  www.precisionag.com What kind […]

Precision agriculture powered by GPS technology — at first a novelty — has now become the norm, driven in part by economic necessity. Putting fertilizer where it is most needed, in the precise amounts required, improves both input utilization and final yields. That variable-rate technology, first applied to dry fertilizer application, is now beginning to […]

A nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is helping University of California researchers refine collaborative robotic technology that could change the way crops are maintained worldwide, saving millions of gallons of water each year and taking precision agriculture to a whole new level. The three-year Robot-Assisted Precision Irrigation and Diagnostics (RAPID) project is […]

    Sensors that measure a variety of essential soil properties on the go are being developed. These sensors can be used either to control variable rate application equipment in real-time or in conjunction with a Global Positioning System (GPS) to generate field maps of particular soil properties. Depending on the spacing between passes, travel […]

     Sensors that measure a variety of essential soil properties on the go are being developed. These sensors can be used either to control variable rate application equipment in real-time or in conjunction with a Global Positioning System (GPS) to generate field maps of particular soil properties. Depending on the spacing between passes, travel […]

      Auto-steer technology has taken the farming community community by storm in recent years.  This technology is more frequenlty referred to as auto-guidance, the guidance of agricultural vehicles using satellite-based positioning equipment (e.g., GPS receivers).       Rising energy costs and more reasonably priced auto-guidance systems have made a clearer cost justification […]