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TalkingFields is an initiative aiming to increase the efficiency of agricultural production via precision farming by means of geo-information services. It integrates space and ground-based assets to achieve this target.
The Talking Fields Demonstration Study is the result of a feasibility study which was successfully concluded in 2009.
Precision Farming tries to increase productivity of agricultural cultivation by a more efficient utilisation of natural and anthropogenic resources (land, seeds, fertilisers, plant protection agents and water). Up to now, available systems and tools are limited to a specific area of precision farming, while at the same time they are requiring an enormous investment by farmers. The objective of this activity thus is to develop and implement a set of cost-effective end-to-end Precision Farming services that allow the farmer to adopt a comprehensive site-specific farming system with little effort.
Targeted users are mainly arable farms. Traditionally, farming was an activity dedicated to the production of food for human and animal purposes. Nevertheless, in the last years Energy Industry has also become an active player in the field of agriculture mainly due to the recent success of bio-fuels. Precision Farming requires an open mind regarding new technologies and their application, which is where the Energy Industry is taking some advantage. Also, younger farmers are starting to be aware of the business advantages that may be derived from this concept.
TalkingFields mainly addresses these two types of users, which is why target demonstrations will take place in Germany and Eastern Europe.
Because of the growth in world population, the global nutrition demand is continuously increasing. However, it is not possible to increase the surface of cultivable land. The only available option is to increase field production whenever possible in a sustainable way. Traditional farming techniques do not always make an efficient utilisation of resources, which eventually leads to an unnecessary increase of production costs. Examples of this are the following:
- Inefficient usage of farming machinery increases fuel consumption.
- Homogeneous fertilisation has an appreciable impact in production costs as well as in land and water pollution.
To maximise efficiency and save costs at the same time, farmers need to characterise their fields and to identify the heterogeneities of canopy development as well as the spatial distribution of different soil characteristics (soil probes are obligatory). Farm managers also require information on the precise location of these heterogeneities in order to be able to sensibly apply the necessary management actions.
TalkingFields is an integrative service incorporated in an established Farm Management System, combining mainly Navigation technologies with Earth Observation. One central idea of TalkingFields is to process data coming from Earth Observation satellites according to the end-user requests and to submit the results to the farmer in order to assist with his management strategies.
The Earth Observation sensors deliver spatial information about the development of the crop (e.g. multi-temporal observation of biomass, nitrogen status, water content, crop maturity, pests and diseases).
This result is used to generate decision support for the farmer based on his individual needs (e.g. application maps for plant protection measures). The information is provided in such a way as to be easily understood by the user.
The farmer uses this information in combination with Navigation Technologies in order to locate specific areas in his fields that require attention. He thus may easily alter his management strategy to site-specific cultivation.
The three year demonstration phase has started on April 1st 2010. The first year is dedicated to system design, the second year to implementation into a first version of a demonstrator and the third year to refining and advancing of the system via demo cases.
A set of end-to-end Precision Farming services will be developed and implemented into a demonstrator. The services will be applied for several demo users who’s feedback will be integrated into the service chain. After the demonstration phase, TalkingFields will be ready for operational service provision.
The uniqueness and innovation of TalkingFields lies in several factors. It provides complex integrative services to farmers in a comprehensive and comprehensible way. It provides the complete service chain from the satellite up to the machinery that actually performs the application on the field. The space components will be integrated in standard agricultural processes as well as standard agricultural software, guaranteeing ease of use for the farmer and thus a level of acceptance among the farming community that hasn’t been available before.
The proposed concept is the following: the farmer requests a service from the catalogue for a particular area that has to be located using Navigation Technologies. The service provider, based on the Navigation information and Earth Observation data, together with a land surface model, prepares the specific products which assist the farmer with his management decisions. The farmer, based on the TalkingFields products, his personal experience as well as on Navigation information, performs the necessary actions in the specific location. In this way, every part of a field receives individual treatment, saving costs and improving the effective yield.
The TalkingFields system will provide substantial contributions to the following services:
- Improved soil mapping: information regarding soil heterogeneity to allow cost-beneficial GNSS-based selective sampling for soil mapping
- Economic evaluation: evaluation whether site-specific nitrogen fertilisation is economically profitable for a specific field, together with the provision of management zones
- Plant Protection Measures: information about biomass and density as an indicator for crop disease risk, together with decision support products for site-specific plant protection measures
- Yield estimation:, 2 -4 weeks before harvest
For precision farming space borne Navigation and Earth Observation Satellite are extremely important. The Navigation Satellite provides geo-location information that enables farmers to conduct precision farming operations such as chemical and fertilizer application. Earth Observation Satellite provides a global overview of the fields and their characteristics in one single snapshot, saving time and money. Satellite Communication links all the issues together in those areas where no terrestrial links are available. TalkingFields combines all these systems and increases the variety of the provided services (improved soil mapping, economic evaluation, plant protection measures, yield estimation).
Baseline Design for the project has been started.
