The Answer to Agriculture’s Daunting Challenges – Soil Sensors

According to the United Nations, 9.6 billion people will live on planet Earth by 2050. Feeding these mouths will require simultaneously meeting three great needs: quantity, environmental, and cultural. The World Resources Institute (WRI) forecasts that we will have to close the gap of approximately 70% between the amount of food we have today and the amount needed by 2050. We will also need to reduce agriculture’s impact on climate, ecosystems, and water. Finally, we will need to ensure that agriculture supports inclusive economic and social development. The answer to these daunting challenges lies in real-time precision agriculture soil sensors, data gathering, and analysis.

Precision agriculture technology and techniques can maximize food production, minimize environmental impact, and reduce cost. However, precision agriculture management requires understanding soil at increasingly finer scales. Conventional soil sampling and laboratory analyses lack this granularity and are time consuming and expensive. Remote soil sensing technology from companies such as Persistence Data Mining can overcome these shortcomings. Through the collection of spatial soil data with quicker, cheaper, and less laborious techniques, remote soil sensing has the opportunity to provide a paradigm shift in precision farming technology today. For example, Persistence Data Mining’s platform utilizes hyper-spectral soil sensor imaging to map nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, organic matter, and pH. By collecting real-time data on soil, agriculturists can use predictive analytics to make smarter decisions.

Advertisement

Using remote soil sensing predictive analysis enables you to develop variable rate soil nutrient application maps. Farmers can achieve fertilizer savings using these types of systems, as well as significant yield increases. These environmentally effective system also reduce fertilizer over-application, which leads to runoff and leaching into ground water. Thanks to the latest fertilizer management technology, precision ag sensors have the vast potential to address the challenges facing agriculture.

MORE BY KIM FLEMING

0

Leave a Reply