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Dryland corn farmers looking for a way to protect water quality and optimize nitrogen (N) applications can now find help through a variety of commercial precision sensing technologies. However, much of the new equipment is still being perfected. Although it shows great promise, an economic payback isn't always guaranteed.
For example, three years of on-farm trials in Missouri that compared sidedress N applications to corn using a farmer's standard N rate to variable rates dictated by in-field sensors provided mixed results, says Ken Sudduth, USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agricultural engineer, based in Columbia. The research trials were a collaborative effort by the USDA-ARS, the University of Missouri and MFA Incorporated. The researchers collected data from both NTech Industries' GreenSeeker optical sensors and Holland Scientific's Crop Circle Plant Canopy Sensor.
“In a general sense, both sensors performed similarly,” Sudduth says. “It appears that they were both varying N appropriately and would call for high N applications in the spots that looked more N stressed and low N applications in spots that looked less N stressed.”
Both in-field sensors did well in directing appropriate levels of N to the crop, agrees Peter Scharf, a University of Missouri nutrient management specialist. However, the profit levels achieved from using the equipment were a bit disappointing, he says.
“Overall, we lost 2.6 bu./acre of yield by using the sensors, compared to the producer rate, but we saved an average of 31 lbs. of N/acre,” he says. “Using period-average prices for both N and corn, we achieved about a $6.50/acre advantage from using the sensors, not counting application costs and technology costs. However, with the new recent increases in corn price and declines in N price, much of that advantage has now evaporated.”
Still, future technological advances and refinements could make the equipment work better in Missouri than it has so far, Scharf adds. In addition, state and federal environmental incentives or regulations also could increase the technology's value.
“Right now, the sensor technology isn't a big winner economically, but it's probably a winner on the environmental side,” he says. “In Missouri, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is paying qualifying farmers $20/acre to do this. So if you have the EQIP payments, this gives you a pretty cost-effective way to prevent N from escaping from cornfields.”
Variable results
Corn growers in states with different soils might profit more from the sensor technology than corn growers in Missouri, Scharf says. “As you go farther north in the Corn Belt, there might be better opportunities for N savings than in Missouri, because of the higher organic matter soils that exist there,” he says. “There are more possibilities for N savings farther north than we have here.”
Yet further west and south, researchers at Oklahoma State University (OSU) have seen better economic results from using optical sensors to improve N management for corn than the Missouri researchers have. “Our on-farm research and demonstrations in wheat and corn have shown that a farmer can save at least $10 to $20/acre by using sensors to manage N applications, and the potential economic benefits would be more in corn than in wheat,” says Hailin Zhang, OSU soil scientist. “So the technology could pay for itself in one year's time, especially for a large-acreage farmer.”
OSU researchers originally developed their active precision sensing equipment to optimize N applications for wheat and then tried it in other crops, Zhang says. Eventually, NTech Industries Inc. bought the OSU patent and commercialized the GreenSeeker sensor.
“We started our research with winter wheat, but we have expanded it to corn, Bermuda grass and sorghum,” Zhang says. “This technique is expanding all over the world with many other crops, including rice.”
For now, relatively few Oklahoma farmers have bought the optical sensors, says Zhang, who reports that the cost to purchase a handheld sensor would approach $3,500. He adds, however, that crop consultants and county extension agents have been using the sensors for several years as a service to farmers.
“The sensors have also helped to prevent overfertilization,” Zhang says. “This year, we had a drought, and the sensor predicted that less N was needed in some fields.”
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