THE POTENTIAL FOR PRECISION AGRICULTURE FOR SOIL AND SUGARCANE YIELD VARIABILITY IN BRAZIL

摘要

Sugar cane is an economically important crop in many countries around the word. In Brazil it is one of the largest export crops and could be regarded as a high value crop per ha. It also is a high input crop with up to 800 kg ha-1 of fertilizer applied per annum. With this combination of high value inputs, it could be argued that sugarcane is a potential candidate for precision agriculture. For this reason, Brazilian farmers and researches have begun working on the application of precision agriculture to sugar cane. This paper focuses on the application of precision agriculture to sugar cane in an attempt to understand spatial variability of soil properties, improve production, and reduce the undesirable effects of agriculture on the environmental quality. The first task was to implement a directed soil-sampling regime based on soil-related maps and landscape. Next task was to develop a yield mapping system. The results of the soil tests indicated a strong variability of soil chemical properties inclasses of soils that were supposed to be naturally homogeneous. The resultant yield map displayed yield variations from 70 t ha-1 to 200 t ha-1. The results show the viability of precision agriculture when applied to sugar cane in the Brazilian conditions.