Abstract
A site-specific nitrogen fertilizer application system that uses optical reflectance measurements of growing wheat plants to estimate N requirements has been developed. The machine enables unique applications of liquid N fertilizer at a grid level of 0.37 m2. To achieve widespread adoption, the precision application system must be efficient enough to overcome the cost advantage of pre-plant applications of anhydrous ammonia (NH3) relative to top-dress applications of either dry or liquid N sources on growing wheat. The objective of this research is to determine if the system is more profitable than conventional methods. Data from on-farm N fertilizer experiments were collected across three years and nine locations in the Southern Plains of the U.S.A. Net returns were calculated for each of eight treatments. The site-specific precision system was competitive economically, but it was not unambiguously superior to the conventional alternatives because it could not overcome the cost advantage of NH3 pre-plant N sources relative to the cost of applying urea-ammonium nitrate (UAN) during the growing season. The value of the precision system is sensitive to the price of UAN relative to the price of NH3.
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Notes
Parameter estimates were shifted one standard deviation to the left in an effort by Raun et al. (2002) to describe a yield boundary.
The level of N applied to the NRS (kg ha−1) is equal to 0.0417 kg times the expected maximum potential yield of the field (kg ha−1). In this study the average expected maximum potential yield was assumed to be 3,225 kg ha−1.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully thank the editors and two anonymous journal reviewers for their constructive comments. The project was supported by the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, Hatch grant number H-2574 and by the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station.
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Biermacher, J.T., Epplin, F.M., Brorsen, B.W. et al. Economic feasibility of site-specific optical sensing for managing nitrogen fertilizer for growing wheat. Precision Agric 10, 213–230 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-008-9092-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-008-9092-y