Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - 11:15 AM
141-7
Precision Agriculture and the Sod- Based Cotton/Peanut Cropping Systems.
Tawainga Katsvairo, David Wright, James Marois, and Jimmy Rich. University of Florida, Univ. of Florida, 155 Research Rd., Quincy, FL 32351
Site-specific management has potential to increase efficiency of the livestock/ peanut/cotton cropping systems. Integrated livestock/row crop systems are gaining considerable attention in the US . However little research reports on the inclusion of precision agriculture to the integrated cropping systems. We evaluated spatial variability of plant height, leaf area index, soil organic matter, NPK and yield for cotton in a sod/livestock/peanut/cotton cropping system in Florida in 2006. The parameters were evaluated under irrigated and non-irrigated conditions and under conservation tillage. Geostatisticals techniques were used to analyze the spatial distribution and maps were produced using ArcGIS. All variables showed spatial variation across the field. Plant height showed moderate to strong spatial dependence. Areas of the field with the tallest plants did not necessarily produce highest yield. No yield differences were found between irrigated and non-irrigated areas. The results show that it will be necessary to create individual zone maps since the maps for different variables did not always overlap. We propose to test the spatial distribution of the variables over time to determine if the management zones remain the same across different climatic conditions.