4.0
Introduction
Kentucky
has diverse topographic features from the mountains in the Eastern Coal Fields,
through the karstic features of the Pennyroyal region, and stretching to the
upper Mississippi River delta in the Jackson Purchase area. Of 26 million total acres of land in the Commonwealth, 6.4
million acres are intensively cropped, and another 7.5 million acres are
pastured. In the Outer Bluegrass
Region of Central Kentucky it is quite common to see the ridge tops and eroded
hillsides planted to grain crops using no-till practices.
The more fertile and low-lying areas along the Ohio River in western
Kentucky exhibit productivity levels that rival the deep prairie soils of the
corn-belt. The historical management of Kentucky's land resources such as land
application of animal wastes, intensive cultivation of tobacco, conventional
tillage practices that promoted soil erosion, and aggregation of smaller fields
into large production units, have all combined to introduce additional
variability to Kentucky's soils. Variations in agronomic factors that affect management
decisions include fertility, erosion potential, compaction, drainage
classification, and water holding capacity.
The problem facing most Kentucky producers is the lack of appropriate and
cost effective strategies to manage this variability.
The advent of GIS and GPS provides these same producers with new tools to
manage this variability. Therefore
the goal of this project is to develop methodologies and guidelines for
producers who intend to adopt and utilize precision agricultural practices in
their operations. Paramount to this
effort is demonstration of the potential economic and environmental benefits
associated with the use of precision agriculture practices, that will accrue to
Kentucky producers and society at large.
The
specific objectives to be addressed under Phase III funding of this project are:
1)
the development of educational and outreach programs and tools to support
the adoption and use of precision agriculture practices in Kentucky;
2)
the quantification of crop yield variability within a field and the
determination of the causes of this variation;
3)
the development of criteria and decision aids for managing the
variability that exists within crop production units;
4)
the development of standards and protocols for the collection, analysis
and utilization of spatial and temporal data to enhance crop production;
5)
the development of methodologies to assess the economics of the adoption
and use of precision agricultural crop production practices; and
6)
the development and evaluation of methodologies to improve the
environment including utilization of animal waste resources.