Plant sensor or satellite: Which is better in agriculture?

In modern agriculture, digital information technologies, such as the site-specific application used for fertilization, have become an integral part of modern agriculture. Automatic documentation makes everyday work easier for many farmers. This raises the question: Plant sensor or satellite — which is the better choice? We've summarized the most important things for you.

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Why is site-specific management with a plant sensor or satellite useful?

Hardly any production factor in your company is as uneven as your soils. Different soil types, water resources and other environmental influences cause the yield potential of areas in one and the same area to fluctuate significantly. Despite farmers' many years of experience, the major differences in yield zones within a single crop are often underestimated. The precise and demand-oriented distribution of seeds, fertilisers or plant protection products is therefore difficult. Modern techniques for automatically recording different areas specify the site-specific management of your overall shot, whether there is experience with the shot or not. An experienced farmer can still contribute his own opinion to the system. This enables you to increase your yields by precisely conveying profitable areas — and in doing so you improve the efficiency of the amount of application you use. At the same time, you utilize your full income potential at all times.

Plant sensor or satellite — where do the systems show their advantages?

Especially when fertilizing, it is essential to react to the current nitrogen uptake in the individual areas of the crop. This is the only way you can influence your plant population in the right direction. It is possible to promote locations with high yield expectations through additional fertilization or to fertilize more poorly developed plants in order to homogenize your population. Both strategies are only effective if you do so on the basis of an up-to-date inventory. You can create the digital maps for this site-specific fertilization in various ways. The options for this include using data from a plant sensor or a satellite.

A first step is to use satellite images whose maps are available to you in ISARIA CONNECT are available. In addition to NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), which represents the biomass index, you can also see important data such as temperature and precipitation patterns in your stocks in the ISARIA CONNECT data management system.

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The use of satellite images has the following advantages and disadvantages.

Satellite advantages:

• Good start to site-specific management
• Quickly available data
• First experience with application card creation in ISARIA CONNECT is possible
• Low start-up costs, but no payback
• Good for long-term viewing

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Disadvantages of satellite:

• Due to cloud cover or an unfavorable location (fewer satellite overflights in some regions), current satellite images are often not available at the desired time
• The NDVI is reaching saturation -> In late stages of development, there are no longer any visible differences in plant population
• Shaded forest edges change the result (Important: To create good satellite images, the preface must be cut away due to marginal influences)
• Various interpolation methods mean that forest edges/meadow streaks/defects influence the yield potential map of the entire area
• Especially in youth development, the plant population changes significantly within a few days. A seven-day old satellite image does not describe the current plant population in spring. On average, a satellite only flies over an area every 5 days.

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The advantages of a plant sensor in site-specific management

Because of these restrictions and inaccuracies, it is also recommended to use a plant sensor such as ISARIA PRO Active or the ISARIA PRO Compact. These sensors are attached directly to the tractor and determine the biomass index and the nitrogen uptake index in real time during the crossing. Based on this measured real-time data and the selected fertilization strategy/crop protection strategy, the application rate is then determined and transmitted to the application device. The data measured with ISARIA PRO Compact and ISARIA PRO Active can be managed in ISARIA CONNECT — so you have an overview of all your inventory data! Automatic documentation of your fertilizer and plant protection application is an integral part of ISARIA CONNECT and is officially recognized.

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Plant sensor or satellite: The advantages of the sensor

• Ready to use at any time and immediately
• No influence of cloudiness
• Shows the current inventory
• Application volume can be overridden at any time, even during the crossing
• Everything in one step: measure, calculate, apply
• Measures biomass index and N uptake index
• No saturation, even in later vegetation stages, thanks to N uptake index
• The application device can easily be controlled even without ISOBUS
• No need to transfer previously created application cards to the tractor terminal
• Time savings -> no previous application card calculation on the PC

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Increasing the yield and quality of your harvest through sensor-based fertilization in real-time recording of plant population

The advantages of an ISARIA plant sensor mounted on the tractor compared to satellite maps are obvious. You will receive up-to-date, precise and reliable data for your fertilization. In addition, you can also store historical data such as soil maps or yield maps in the terminal, which are taken into account when fertilizing with the plant sensor. This makes your fertiliser application safe and successful. The use of an ISARIA plant sensor is therefore particularly recommended for quality control in cereals. The timeliness of the data is of great importance here. With the ISARIA system, you don't have to access past data that is older than five days, but you can keep an eye on the current status of your inventory.

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