Highlights from the CRDC/ ACC CRC 2005 Farming Systems Forum held in Goondiwindi that explored the use of Precision Agriculture (PA) for cotton production.

This presentation is based on the CRDC Farming Systems Forum held at the Goondiwindi Training and Technology Centre over two days with the focus on Precision Agriculture. It was a gathering of a number of people both from the government sector, universities and private businesses working in the development of Precision Agriculture and a number of growers who are interested in adopting Precision Agriculture and applying it on their farms. We have interviews with two of the workshop attendees; Andrew Smart who is a consultant implementing Precision Agriculture on a number of irrigation farms in the Gwydir and Macintyre and Bruce Pyke from CRDC commenting on the Industry outlook and an update on Precision Agriculture.

Andrew Smart, Precision Cropping Technologies.

What are some of the basic steps growers have undertaken as they move into Precision Ag on their cotton farms?

Presently farmers are starting to move towards more soil survey work, yield monitoring, utilizing the elevation data that’s coming off their steering systems that they have had for quite a number of years and being able to get more value from that type of technology.

We are starting to see a bit of irrigation work too?

Yes, there has been quite a bit of improvement in water use efficiency, looking at how we water paddocks and some of the things that are effecting yield, based on water and how that’s been influenced by soil type, slope and other aspects in the design of the field.

During the workshop there has been a lot of talk about EM surveys, what is an EM survey and what format does the information come to growers and consultants?

An EM survey is measuring the aggregate of the conductivity of the soil. We typically use the EM38 in fields because it measures down to around a metre to a metre and a half so we are really concentrating on the root depth. It’s influenced by clay content, moisture and salts in the soil. It gives a very good base layer of information on the soil types, where they vary, where they exist in the paddock and we can identify how much of a soil type is actually in the paddock.

What are some of the decision making processes with the EM data?

We are finding one of the main uses currently is looking at where we are putting our moisture probes so that when we make a decision on watering it is relative to the majority of the field. So, rather than years ago we might have walked in a hundred metres and up fifty metres or something like that, now we are specifically locating those probes based on the majority soil type. This is also relevant for petiole testing and soil sampling. A lot of the agronomy and management that is happening in the paddock is focusing on those areas, trying to get that majority soil type that makes up seventy percent of the paddock, trying to get as much as we can out of that.

What do you think has been the reasons of the relatively slow uptake by cotton growers of Precision Ag?

I think it has always been an adoption rate in any industry. If we look at other industries that we do work in, the adoption in the cotton industry is far greater. The products and the value are far more easily shown in the cotton industry, or any irrigation industries. The next level of grower uptake is probably on a bit more of a faster track than the growers over the last five years have been adopting technology. The EM uses, we are trying to use that for watering zones, three or four years ago all we were trying to work out what yields came from what zones and where to put moisture probes and things like that. Now we are trying to work out which watering sets to water first and identifying the areas where there may be deep drainage or loss in channels. The growers who are going to come on now are probably going to get more value faster than the early adopters.

Finally, where does the industry now put its efforts to speed up the rate of adoption of Precision Ag?

We need to create a bit more awareness. If we really looked at the amount of people who are actually supplying Precision Ag services to the cotton industry it is not very high. So even if there was a next generation of farmers to the next level of adopters, which could be twenty or thirty percent of the industry; whether the people are going to be there to actually service them anyway is going to have to be looked at. We need to look at some specific training with people coming out of University, try to give them a head start and a general awareness campaign to demonstrate to growers that there is value out there and hopefully when prices go up they will be able to get into the technology. Therefore when prices go down again they will probably be in a position of more efficient growing to handle that.

Bruce Pyke, Cotton Research & Development Corporation.

Could you give us a quick summary of some of the key issues coming out of the farming systems workshop?

Some of the really key issues have been things like; there is all this fantastic capacity out there in terms of technology, new technology being developed to measure a whole range of different things out in the fields and also data processing. The technology there is increasing at a rapid rate. What we seem to lack though is the capacity to interpret the things we are able to map and monitor. I think that was one of the things that was highlighted. Some of the leading growers and leading consultants are making some progress there and I think that is a key issue that has come out of this, certainly for the CRDC.

The cotton industry has obviously invested some money over the years in research in Precision Ag, what has been the highlights of what has come out of that work?

It is interesting to look at a couple of examples of some projects that weren’t targeted at Precision Ag. One was, probably twelve years ago, we invested funds in looking at the question of the salinity risk to the industry. We didn’t know about the salinity risk that was there, and a lot of the work that was done to try and map that used EM technology and when you look around today that’s quite common for EM mapping and surveys to be done on a lot of properties. People are starting to use them to help them make better decisions how to manage their fields. That’s one example that didn’t really come out of research, it was targeted at Precision Ag and maybe we shouldn’t confine ourselves to just thinking about Precision Ag, we might need to be thinking about things that are important to the industry and is there a Precision Ag application that we might be able to make use of to help us.

What do you think may have been some of the factors contributing to a slow uptake of some of the things that have come out of the Precision Ag area?

It may have been a case of information overload. You can get so much information from your plant mapping and other forms of that sort of thing. You have got to be able to interpret it. I think that’s where the hiatus is. I think we are starting to see that build up though. We are getting some expertise in the consultancy area that is really helping that with a lot of the leading growers. I think we can take that further though. We can say with new technology like Bollgard II® there is some capacity among our normal field consultants who can be trained up to better able use this stuff. I think there are some real opportunities there in the next year or two we need to focus on.

What would you see as the high priorities for attention in Precision Ag in the cotton industry in the immediate future?

The immediate future might centre around training and providing some good case studies of what people are doing and what the economics, illustrating the value of what they are getting out of Precision Ag, how they are applying it. There is a whole range of different examples you can look at from weed management right through to fertiliser and irrigation. How people are using Precision Ag to improve what they are doing. We might be able to highlight that, I think that then builds some awareness amongst growers who are maybe sitting on the fence thinking “do I get into this or not,” seeing what value other growers have got out of it, that’s one thing.

I think trying to build our capacity in the industry, the most immediate group I guess to focus on would be our consultants. Can we provide them with better skills and training to improve the service they can provide to their clients? I think that’s probably where the biggest ‘bang for the buck’ might be.

Further Information:  John Marshall or David Kelly