Precision ag’s time arrives
Disposable fingernail-sized sensors could one day be used as a measuring tool by farmers as they push to be more efficient and sustainable operators.
The next generation of sensors were under development and emitted a tiny pulse that measured whatever parameter it was designed for.
The information it collected was uploaded onto a cloud server, Colorado State University professor of precision agriculture, Raj Khosla said.
‘‘You can hold them in your hand, go to the field and randomly distribute them out into the field.
‘‘You don’t even have to collect them, they are biodegradable,’’ said Khosla, a guest speaker at the International Tri-conference for Precision Agriculture in Hamilton.
This technology and the wider use of precision agriculture allowed farmers to better understand variability in soil, water, nutrients, topography and weather that made farming so challenging in the past, he said.
‘‘One size does not fit all. You cannot manage your entire farm with one rate of water. You cannot manage your farm with one rate of nitrogen.’’
In the past, a one-size-fits-all approach on paddocks with variable conditions resulted in them being under or overfertilised. Collecting data using precision agriculture allowed farmers to reallocate resources and apply them where it really mattered, he said.
Agriculture was being seen through a digital lens with farmers relying on sensors as a measurement tool that stored data on a cloud server providing access anywhere and anytime.
The next wave of technology for precision agriculture will come from harnessing the data.
Farmers could now choose what they wanted to monitor using sensors and collect vast amounts of information.
There had been more data collected by humans in the last two years than in the entire space of human history, he said.
‘‘The question is, what do we do with that now.
‘‘That’s where the challenge is.’’
Khosla said farming still had a long way to go to make the most of this technology.
Today’s modern smartphones were four billion times faster than the computers used to put man on the moon in 1969, he said.
‘‘Agriculture is changing and now I am so proud that we are innovating in agriculture. There is more innovation and investment right now than ever in the history of humankind. Our time has arrived, finally.’’