INVESTING CHECKOFF DOLLARS
SENSOR-ING A CHANGE New uses in precision agriculture BY CAROL BROWN
T
he agriculture industry has been using sensors in precision agriculture for some time, but researchers at the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) are pushing the boundaries on what can be discovered with this technology. For soybean farmers to stay competitive in national and international markets, yield is vital. But now other factors are becoming equally important, including protein and oil content. Can soybean yield and nutritional values be accurately mapped in the field? Can the industry be smarter about soybean seed quality? A project recently underway is exploring these questions. “In the past, measuring soybean protein and oil content required the collection of soybean seed samples and laboratory analyses,” says Peter Kyveryga, ISA Analytics director. “With recent innovations in sensor
technologies, it is now possible to map soybean protein and oil in the field.” ISA is leading a project with Iowa State University (ISU) and John Deere Co. to map protein and oil content while soybeans are developing and during harvest. The success of this project could impact farmer management decisions and how they grow and market their crop. The research team, with support from the United Soybean Board, collected and calibrated aerial images of soybean fields on two central Iowa farms and five ISU research farm fields every 10 to 15 days between June and early September. They studied fields with both 15- and 30-inch rows. “The researchers have flown over my fields with drones and planes, and they did an intensive probe sampling all across one of the fields,” says Dave Struthers,
Matt Darr, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering professor
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who farms near Collins. “I’ve got all kinds of colorful maps and lots of data.” Kyveryga is analyzing that data from the 2018 growing season, which includes yield data, protein and oil maps and inseason aerial images. “The higher yields don’t always correlate with high protein or high oil values,” says Kyveryga. “In general, field areas with higher protein had lower oil content, but this wasn’t consistent across all the fields.” Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering professor Matt Darr is the lead from ISU on this project. He believes protein sensing and aerial imagery have a strong future. “Quantifying the magnitude of soybean protein variability and connecting that to management and environmental factors is the first step toward a higher quality product,” he says.
