Science & Technology

Turning to tech to offset rising input costs

With soaring input prices putting farm profit margins under yet more pressure, farmers must once again find new ways to improve production efficiencies. For crop-based systems – whether arable or grassland – the use of technology could help to partially offset these cost increases by ensuring fertiliser is applied accurately and effectually.

“Input costs have risen sharply across the board in recent months, with prices for nitrogen as high as £650 per tonne,” explains Jack Harris of LH Agro. “At that price, growers who haven’t yet purchased fertiliser for 2022 are questioning whether they can afford to, with those that bought before the price spike also wondering how to make the best use of their commodities.

“What bonds both groups is the need to maximise production efficiencies by making the best use of available inputs, especially as there are no obvious signs of when prices might return to ‘normal’.”

Mr Harris suggests that precision farming technologies can help to ensure inputs are used as effectively as possible: “The benefits of auto-steering and implement guidance systems are well documented, with improved accuracy and reduced drilling overlaps and misses at the crop establishment phase a given,” he explains. “But precision farming technologies can also improve the accuracy of fertiliser and spray applications later in the cropping calendar, with satellite imagery, field mapping and real-time crop sensors enabling growers to ensure inputs such as fertiliser are only applied where and when they are needed.”

Cab-mounted crop sensors such as the Topcon CropSpec system, measure the light reflectance of plants at each field pass to monitor the in-field variability of crops and to provide an on-the-go assessment of where and when nutrients should be applied. And because they aren’t affected by cloud cover which can reduce the accuracy and reliability of satellite-based mapping systems, they provide a more up-to-date and accurate assessment of the crop’s actual condition and progress.

“Pairing a variable rate and section control enabled fertiliser spreader or sprayer with a system like CropSpec takes the guesswork out of input applications and ensures the right product is applied at the right rate, the right time and in the right place,” Mr Harris continues.

To illustrate the point, Mr Harris refers to a recent convert from fixed to variable rate applications who has been able to reduce liquid fertiliser applications by almost 15%. “Prior to installing CropSpec sensors the grower was applying 8854 litres of liquid fertiliser to a 23.61-hectare block,” Mr Harris explains. “That volume has now been reduced to 7689 litres, a saving of 1165 litres. “Even at last year’s prices that represented a saving of almost £500 just for that field. At today’s prices, the savings are even greater.”

Remote management

As well as making live or real-time application rate and section control adjustments, the data gathered by cab-mounted sensors can also be used to create field-specific prescription input maps for the remainder of the season. “With the Topcon Agriculture Platform (TAP) this data download can be done wirelessly as soon as the field has been travelled thereby enabling farm managers and agronomists to make quick, but informed management decisions and to plan future input purchases more effectively,” Mr Harris continues.

“TAP can also be used to pass mapping information and variable rate application files back to the field and can be used to adjust the spreader or sprayer’s settings remotely, thereby taking the onus of applying valuable inputs away from less experienced operators.”

New drone software launched at LAMMA

New features of Drone Ag’s Skippy Scout crop monitoring software were available to experience in virtual reality (VR) at LAMMA. The 2020 LAMMA gold ‘future innovation’ award winners offered visitors a chance to experience the new features using a VR headset. “The headset shows users how Skippy Scout enables them to see a whole field from above and zoom in on specific parts of the field that have been imaged by a drone,” explains founder, Jack Wrangham.

The so-called ‘Scout Spheres’ interface provides users with interactive whole field viewing for the first time. “We are the only provider to offer users a droneenabled, full field overview that includes the ability to focus on any area of the field and choose where to inspect at leaf-level,” he says.

Mr Wrangham stresses that this is not future technology and that drones with this software are already being used on farms throughout the UK. “A drone with Skippy can walk a crop 20 times faster than a farmer on foot. PDF reports are generated immediately showing the green area index and the number of plants. This technology is being used by hundreds of farmers already and the data will soon be used to support the use of spraying drones too,” he says.

To show the full extent to which drone captured images can improve crop management, Drone Ag will also be exhibiting one of the latest DJI spraying drones that has a 20-litre capacity and is also capable of granular spreading. “With data from Skippy, users can program spraying drones like the DJI model we will have on the stand. Using this technology can help to reduce soil compaction and the use of chemical by deploying a spraying drone to target only the plants that require treatment,” he explains.

Skippy Scout can count cereals, OSR, soybeans, beans, peas, and potatoes, offering an accurate total of plants in an image, as well as the number of plants per square metre. “The new software is only £30 per month and is compatible with Apple devices and most offthe-shelf drones. It can save time, find weeds and disease faster, and harvest the data needed to improve the sustainability of broad acre crop farming,” he concludes.

Gatekeeper now integrates with fieldview

Farmplan, the UK’s leading agricultural software specialists, has announced that users of its Gatekeeper crop management system can now access the data collection and analysis capabilities of Climate FieldView, the digital farming platform from Bayer. The integration, which will allow farmers to streamline their daily work and improve on-farm decision-making, is now live.

“This integration will make a huge difference for many farms,” says Piers Costley, Managing Director at Farmplan. “We’re aware that growers want to use cutting-edge precision farming and crop optimisation to make the most of their data. The opportunity to integrate these solutions – and do so seamlessly – is an exciting prospect indeed.” Farmers, growers, agronomists, and advisors across the UK regularly use Gatekeeper as their trusted crop management tool. This new update lets those users who also utilise FieldView to collect real-time planting, application, and harvest data from their machinery and instantly sync this between the two systems. “The first step for each farmer was the ability to download and import boundaries into FieldView from Gatekeeper,” says Daniel Pereira, Climate Business Lead EMEA. “Now, it’s more streamlined and straightforward than ever to pull your data across. For growers, this means all your data can talk to each other, saving the need for double entry or managing multiple systems.”

While this will naturally benefit growers in terms of everyday operation and resource management, the integration also aids productivity and profitability on the farm. FieldView grants visibility and access to real-time data, including yields and moisture levels, at any particular moment to assist with short-term decision-making. By feeding that data into Gatekeeper, it becomes possible to make even better decisions and planning over the long term.