Abstract
Precision farming is one of the most growing arenas in the agricultural engineering field. Employing real-time GPS positioning methods, made it easy to build accurately guided machines. On the other hand, environmental concerns made it necessary to apply Variable Rate Treatment (VRT) concept in fertilization. Precise fertilizer application is used widely where fully automatic systems are extensively presented commercially. In this research, a new semi-automatic system is designed and developed locally. The proposed system employs a real time GPS positioning system to guide a tractor mounted rotary spreader to apply phosphate to the field. In order to estimate soil requirements, the field was divided into a 50-meter mesh grid and soil samples were collected from eight GPS defined locations. Soil analysis results were mapped and studied to determine the needed amount of Calcium Super Phosphate to be added per hectare and a prescription map was developed. In order to evaluate system performance and its feasibility, soil chemical analyses of the same GPS defined locations were made after applying the fertilizers using the designed system. It was noticed that assessment of VRT-based systems is clearly stated anywhere in the literature. Different methods of performance assessment are presented in this research. The developed system was tested and evaluated in Al-Oha experimental farm, UAE University.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 72-78 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | AMA, Agricultural Mechanization in Asia, Africa and Latin America |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2006 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Engineering(all)