Sensors Role In Agriculture Prepared by Ryan Turner

Introduction What is a sensor Common Types of Agricultural Sensors Yield Monitor GreenSeeker® Veris® EC pH Sensor uses Conclusion

What is a sensor? Sensor: “a device that responds to a physical stimulus (as heat, light, sound, pressure, magnetism, or a particular motion) and transmits a resulting impulse (as for measurement or operating a control)” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sensor

Yield Monitor Mass flow Optical Weight Uses a force sensor to measure impact of grain on pressure plate over time Optical Uses laser to measure grain flow Weight Uses a force sensor to measure impact of grain on pressure plate Capacitance (Not a yield monitor) Used to check moisture content http://www.bae.uky.edu/precag/PrecisionAg/Exten_pubs/pa1.pdf

GreenSeeker® Measures NDVI NDVI is calculated by Ranges from 0-1 NDVI is calculated by NDVI = 𝑁𝐼𝑅−𝑅 𝑁𝐼𝑅+𝑅 NDVI can be used to tell the health of the plant http://www.cropoptics.com.au/Greenseeker.htm Bare soil has NDVI .18-.2 healthy mature crop 0.9 (Talkabout how you can correlate plant health to a lot of the different issues Wes talked about Nitrogen, PGR’s, Harvest aids, disease/insect pressure etc.)

Veris® EC Used to test soil electrical conductivity (EC) One pair of coulter-electrodes emits a known voltage into the soil, while the other coulter-electrodes receives the signal and measure the time it took to travel and the voltage drop from the signal. http://www.veristech.com/products/soilec.aspx http://www.veristech.com/products/soilec.aspx

Veris® pH On a typical 2.5 acre grid sample, samples are taken 330’ apart. With on-the-go pH mapping approximately 10 times more are taken. Three point hitch, pull behind, and four-wheeler attachment are available http://www.veristech.com/products/soilph.aspx http://www.veristech.com/products/phdetector.aspx

Sensors Uses Veris® EC Veris® pH Yield monitor GreenSeeker® Make yield maps of fields Break fields into zones for better management Know actual yields from fields GreenSeeker® Make NDVI maps of fields Be used for on the go nitrogen application Plant growth regulator and harvest aid (cotton) Can be correlated to most any parameter that is related to plant health. Veris® EC Make EC maps of fields Break fields into zones for better management Better understand field soil Veris® pH Make pH maps of fields Have better defined pH maps Apply variable lime based off of maps

Conclusion Without these types of sensors we wouldn’t be as efficient and effective with crop management practices as we are today. These sensors help the farmer and producer better understand their fields and how to manage them. With further development of new sensors and bettering the current ones, sensors will be a major key player in precision agriculture in the time to come.

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