Increasing quality production and sustainability of the agricultural sector through innovations are some of the most important challenges of the coming years.
Precision Farming (PF) plays a decisive role in this process due to its ability to reduce variability within the field and make the yield uniform.
Precision Farming: what is it?
Precision farming provides methods and techniques to optimize production. As it is an integrated system, it includes multiple implementation tools: for this reason, in recent years, many have tried to provide an exhaustive definition.
We can say that PF allows you to apply the right treatment, in the right place and at the right time. To do this effectively, you need means and technologies capable of detecting the differences in the field and applying the inputs necessary for the crop in a differentiated way within the plot.
Precision farming with Agricolus
The Agricolus platform provides farmers with the technologies needed to do precision farming: this means that the use of resources is not “standard” but is calculated based on the actual needs of the crops. We then proceed to treat or irrigate only when and where necessary, reducing costs by up to 20%.
Thanks to them, farmers can therefore focus on field processes, ensuring greater environmental sustainability, without neglecting economic sustainability.
Remote Sensing – Satellites and drones
Satellites and drones are the most used means for remote crop monitoring.
Vegetation indices are calculated by the Agricolus R&D team thanks to the scouting carried out by these instruments.
Within the platform, the farmer can consult 8 indices (processed from Sentinel 2 satellite images) relating to vigor, water stress and the quantity of chlorophyll to identify the areas where vegetative stress is concentrated and it is necessary to intervene, optimising the activities in the field.
Prescription maps and variable-rate fertilization
Variable rate technologies allow the application of inputs in different parts of the field based on the site-specific needs of the crops and can support cultivation operations such as sowing, irrigation, fertilization, treatments.
With Agricolus it is possible to create prescription maps to carry out variable rate fertilization, starting from a vegetation index, to differentiate the plot into zones.
The prescription map is downloaded and inserted into the machine to tell it how much product to apply based on its location in the field.
Traceability
Tracing the origin of a food product that reaches the consumer’s table means knowing where and how the raw materials it is made of were grown, including the treatments carried out in the field.
With Agricolus it is possible to assign each crop its own production lot to improve the traceability of the operations carried out in the company and consult all the related information via a QR code.
Advantages
Increase crop production
Reduce differences in yield
Increase the quality of the final product
Reduce management costs and inputs supplied
