The science of enhancing agricultural yields and supporting management choices with advanced sensor and analysis technologies is known as precision agriculture, or PA. The world has embraced PA, a novel idea that promises to boost output, cut down on labor costs, and guarantee efficient management of irrigation and fertilizer systems. It makes use of a lot of data and information to enhance crop quality, yields, and the utilization of agricultural resources (Mulla, 2013). The goal of PA, an agricultural innovation and optimized field level management method, is to increase resource production on agricultural fields. In order to improve productivity, quality, and yield, farmers use PA, a new and sophisticated technique, to deliver optimum inputs like water and fertilizer (Gebbers and Adamchuk, 2010). It needs an enormous amount of high spatial resolution data regarding the health or status of the crop during the growth season.
For many years, remote sensing has been hailed as a vital source of data to enable precision agriculture, but for a variety of reasons, uptake has been gradual. Advancements in technology, particularly the accessibility of high-resolution satellite imagery and the recent swift growth of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, indicate that the use of remote sensing data sources in precision agriculture is anticipated to surge in the next ten years.
Multispectral data are typically used in satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based precision agriculture remote sensing applications to estimate high-spatial resolution information about soil parameters, plant health, and crop yields. According to Ben-Dor et al. (2008), reflectance spectra from soils can reveal details about a range of soil characteristics, such as soil moisture and organic matter concentration. Certain elements that impact soil fertility and moisture holding capacity, such as clay minerals, calcium carbonates, and iron oxides, can also be quantified based on the spectral resolution of the apparatus (Thomasson et al., 2001; Rossel et al., 2006).
According to Ben-Dor (2002) and Ben-Dor et al. (2008), each of these soil constituents has distinct spectral regions where reflectance (or absorption) is strongest. To identify these soil constituents, narrowband or hyperspectral imagery is frequently needed in conjunction with methods like spectral unmixing algorithms (Huete and Escadafal, 1991) or derivative spectra (Demetriadesshah et al., 1990; Li et al., 1993).
What is Precision agriculture also called?
Other names for precision agriculture include as-needed farming, site-specific crop management, and precision farming (SSCM). Information technology is used in precision agriculture to make sure that the soil and crops receive precisely what they require for maximum health and yield. Profitability, sustainability, and environmental preservation are also guaranteed by this. When managing crops, it takes into account factors including plant development, soil type, terrain, weather, and yield data.
BENEFITS OF PRECISION AGRICULTURE IN NIGERIA
- Farmers can receive recommendations regarding crop rotation, the best times to sow and harvest crops, and how to maintain the soil through the use of predictive analytics software.
- To help farmers identify fields that need to be treated and figure out how much water, fertilizer, and pesticide to use, agricultural control centers can combine sensor data and imagery input with other data.
- This lowers expenses and manages the farm’s environmental effect while assisting the farmer in preventing runoff and squandering resources and making sure the soil has the ideal amount of additives for maximum health.
- Precision farming reduces variability in net returns by offering site-specific management that can identify issues with growth conditions.
- Chemical and fertilizer applications carried out with precision will better meet crop needs and avoid over-application, which may have negative environmental effects. Good land stewardship will be encouraged by the management techniques produced by precision farming technologies.
- In challenging circumstances, farm tractor operators can increase field efficiency with GPS-based navigation devices. They can lessen overlap and improper input applications (like spraying), which can assist weary personnel in maintaining greater field efficiency.
- Precision farming technology will allow the additional control that is required when you are managing the production of differentiated products as opposed to the production of regular bulk crops.
