Satellite derived soil and crop information system optimizing land use and increasing yield

FarmingTruth is a precision agriculture service that furnishes end users (e.g. farmers, growers, agronomists, agricultural consultants, etc.) with a web-based soil and crop information system to enable the optimisation of land production for increasing yield at reduced input cost. It enables end users to collect and collate crop and soil data from a wide range of data sources including the utilisation of space assets like Earth Observation (EO) and Satellite Navigation (GNSS). FarmingTruth combines high resolution soil information with satellite-derived crop information in an integrated precision farming service. The inherited spatial and temporal variation of soil properties and nutrients is critical for determining variable rate strategies for crop production, but is typically derived from soil samples collected at insufficient resolution (typically 1 soil samples per 1-3 hectare). This leads to limited characterisation of within-field soil variability, thus often results in poor crop and land management. The proposed system addresses this in two ways; 1) utilising a new and innovative on-line soil sensor to collect geo-referenced, high sampling resolution data on key soil properties, 2) integration of soil data with other information such as satellite imagery of crop growth and development, weather data, topography and yield maps, to develop algorithms to determine rules for variable rate applications. These can then be implemented within the soil and crop information system. The vision for the final commercial system would be a web-based portal that would allow end users (farmers, growers, etc) to manage data upload and storage, then to select appropriate "rules" for their specific location and chosen crop using science-based decisions. The resulting treatment maps would then be uploaded to precision-agriculture compatible implements for application of inputs.