Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 20, 1995 TAG: 9507140085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BELTSVILLE, MD. LENGTH: Medium
The swath cut by the harvester, where the field of barley met thick woods, showed Monday as a purplish line on the video monitor. That meant yields were way low for that part of the 14-acre plot.
``That's where the deer got in there and had a nice feast,'' said Charles A. Studer, marketing manager for the John Deere Precision Farming Group, demonstrating the company's contribution to satellite farming at a government-sponsored precision farming field day.
Deer may have beat Deere to that morsel of a crop on land owned by the Agriculture Department's research station just outside Washington. The company is hoping to reap a bigger gain as giant and small businesses try to bring the technology literally down to earth.
Called precision farming, satellite farming or farming by the foot, the methods draw on military technology in a 20th century beating of swords into plowshares.
Global positioning satellites that recently aided in pulling downed pilot Scott O'Grady out of Bosnia can help farmers grow crops with more economical use of seeds, fertilizer and pest killers. A grower who can pinpoint an insect or nutrient problem to five or six acres rather than a 160-acre quarter-section can save thousands of dollars a year in chemical costs.
The switch also could have farmers talking like warriors.
``You program the mission and simply execute the mission,'' said Craig A. Elliott of Rockwell International Corp.'s Collins Avionics & Communications Division, describing the practical use for information about such things as soil moisture, type, fertility and elevation.
Rockwell should know. The company developed the 24 government satellites orbiting the earth.
The harvester on the barley field had mass-flow sensors that could tell how many bushels were being produced on any given part of the field. The information was supplied to a credit-card-size data card that holds 250 hours of harvesting data, put on a map with pixels, or picture units, representing a 30-foot square.
On Monday, the computers superimposed the harvest information on maps showing levels of magnesium and potassium on different parts of the field.
Elsewhere on the farm, a spreader doused a freshly mowed alfalfa field with varying doses of gypsum and potash, without the driver having to touch a control. A soil map told the on-board computer where the lightest and heaviest doses were needed; the satellite said where on the map the machine was.
Rockwell and Deere are launching packages this week that offer the basic equipment and access to signals for $6,000 to $7,000 the first year. It can cost $500 to $1200 a year to receive the signals.
The techniques may not be for everyone, says Bill Magette, an agricultural engineer coordinating a University of Maryland project studying precision farming's costs and benefits. For example, it might cost more than it's worth to collect the precise soil samples needed for maps.
Smaller farmers could arrange access to maps and monitors through cooperatives, soil conservation districts or consulting firms, said Jan van Schilfgaarde, associate deputy administrator for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, which is spending $4.4 million this year on related research.
by CNB