Plant sensor or satellite: Which is better in agriculture?

6.5.2021

Apply fertilizer
Protect plants
Regulate growth
Bonus inventory
Reseed grassland

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.

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.

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

Satellite advantages:

Disadvantages of satellite:

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.

Plant sensor or satellite: The advantages of the sensor

Vergleich Satellitendaten gegenüber Sensordaten

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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