The explosion in interest in precision agriculture technology has been accompanied by a blossoming in the uses for a number of enabling technologies, the two most important of which are the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). While GIS technology offers tremendous capabilities for more informed agricultural decision making, rendering competent decisions still depends on having reliable data available. This paper deals with two issues related to obtaining reliable data. One, the importance of accurately identified locations to which all field mapping and subsequent treatments can be linked. Second, how Global Positioning System (GPS) technology can be used to build your Agricultural GIS data base and to collect data efficiently. Some precision agriculture applications can be performed with less accurate data which cost much less to acquire. However, other applications, like spray control with GPS may require higher accuracy in order to prevent overlapping applications of chemicals. This paper's goal is to give an overview of GPS and how it may be used with GIS for precision agriculture applications including field preparation, planting, chemical application, scouting for weeds and insects, and harvest yield monitoring.
The science of telemetry and computer networking have made it possible for researchers to access real-time data. Real-time hydrological data such as, rainfall and temperature, make it possible for researchers to analyse and determine what influences daily observations will have on the environment. This paper outlines the procedures of coupling, on a nationwide scale, real-time climatic data, from the approximately 400 daily reporting weather stations, with the ACRU model to produce detailed maps of inter alia soil moisture status, crop water requirements and flood-warning indicators over Southern Africa. The final products are interpreted and their applications to regional and national environmental and agricultural resource plans are outlined. The methodology behind obtaining and using real-time climatic information is described in detail in the paper.
Advanced management system of agricultural resources is one of the most important tools to implement high efficient management of modernization agricultural production and makes more and more important influence to the production. However, most of early management systems of agricultural resources were developed mainly in the environment of database system. Thus, the user interfaces in those systems were usually very poor and unsatisfactory, so that those systems had been facing many difficulties in their practical applications. Latterly, GIS was used to introduce its function into those systems so as to largely improve and increase their performance and function, respectively. However, many application examples shown that the performance of those improved systems was not still satisfactory in most of practical applications. Major reasons resulting in this situation can be discussed as follows:
During the productive lift of the Cauca Sugar Plantation (Ingenio del Cauca). approximately 30 years, the Technical Direction of the Field Superintendency has permanently and as Incauca has gradually grown, used all the agronomical and agricultural engineering know-how as well as that of other participating professions in field related activities such as Civil Engineering and Economy, as fundamental tools for the production of sugar cane in a much more efficient manner, that is in aspects related with improving sugar cane production in the plant stage as well as in the improvement of sugar production as a finished product. In the same way as the area of cane production and sugar production capacity was growing so grew the information required for the technical and administrative management of the responsibilities corresponding to the Field Superintendency of Incauca. This information was basically made up of cartographic information and alphanumerical information registered and stored by whatever means were the most appropriate and modern for that time. The association of these two concepts to analyze information as a means of support in the making of decision in different administrative and technical levels in the management of crops and land was used along with information available in that time. Individual plots and the corresponding alphanumerical information, as well as the experience and intuition of the people responsible in the making of decisions. These analysis were limited because they did not allow easy multivariable analysis due to the difficulty to manipulate great volumes of both cartographic and descriptive information. For those reason, Incauca, Ingenio Providencia and Cenicafia decided to execute a Pioneer GIS (Geographic Information System) Project that will permit to associate georeferenced special information (cartography) with descriptive information (Date Base), with the purpose of showing the great utility that this new concept of software can have in the development and growth of the sugar industry.