Crop fertilizer supplements the needed nutrients that plants aren’t already getting from the soil they’re grown in. In order to grow and develop properly, and in turn, have a high yield, different plants require different ratios of nutrients. Different crop areas have inherently different soil nutrient levels – even within the same field.
With the aid of precision fertilization tools, precise nutrient management customizes fertilizer inputs to what a specific crop in a specific area needs. This approach is tailored to meet crop needs as efficiently as possible while improving yield. By utilizing a precision fertilization tool, like the Digital Crop Advisor, you get decision support that ensures the right nutrient inputs are used at the correct rate and time.
Nutrient management is a hot topic for many in the agriculture industry. Recently, the United States Department of Agriculture announced additional funding for sustainable agriculture and nutrient management. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act on August 15, 2022, $19.5 million will go to conservation funding to support sustainable agriculture. Crop nutrition management will be incentivized through conversation programs.
Part of that funding will go to a new outreach effort highlighting nutrient management’s economic benefits. The campaign will highlight the potential net savings to farmers who adopt a nutrient management plan – estimated at an average of $30 per acre for cropland.
If all of the 89 million acres of cropland that exceed the nitrogen loss threshold implemented a nutrient management plan, the average net savings would reach $2.6 billion.
Beyond the financial impacts, minimizing nutrient runoff through crop nutrition optimization is key to reducing global emissions from agriculture. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated that in 2019, synthetic nitrogen alone made up over eight percent of farm emissions. Integrated nutrient management is a critical aspect of sustainable agriculture.
Site-specific management of crop-essential nutrients provides field-specific optimization. In a meta-analysis of site-specific nutrient management, grain yield across all crops increased by 12%, and profitability increased by 15% while 10% less nitrogen was applied.
Optimization of crop-essential nutrients doesn’t just provide yield and profit benefits; more precise applications and fewer fertilizer inputs can reduce leaching. Leaching results in excess soluble fertilizer escaping the crop that needs it and harming the surrounding environment.
Precise application of fertilizer through precision agriculture and fertilization planning is a win-win for farmers, the environment, and the global population. However, implementation requires having the right data and expertise. Crop nutrition optimization planning tools can streamline the data collection and planning process, all while making it simple to connect with experts and advisors.
Data-driven support with Digital Crop Advisor
Agmatix’s Digital Crop Advisor solution is a data-driven, AI-fueled crop nutrition decision support system (DSS) tool for automatically creating and optimizing site-specific, customized nutrition plans. Digital Crop Advisor helps you maximize yields sustainably from every crop and acre with cutting-edge technology that translates agronomic data into actionable insights.
Our Digital Crop Advisor customized fertilization planning tool creates crop nutrition plans at the field level for applications of up to 12 nutrients. These plans are bespoke based on needs such as crops, geography, seasonality, and production goals. Both pre-season and in-season crop nutrition plans are possible. With the capability to plan for over 150 crops, even the most unique crop rotation can be managed with the crop nutrition optimization planning tool.
The Digital Crop Advisor includes an executive dashboard that provides user-friendly access and control of the organization’s activity. With a view of the entire organization’s crop nutrition assets in a single location, users can identify issues proactively, manage crop protocols, and analyze data to extract actionable insights.
Integrated nutrient management in sustainable agriculture is also supported by the crop nutrition decision support system by quantifying the carbon footprint of nutritional plan recommendations. Sustainability is at the forefront of the work Agmatix is doing with Digital Crop Advisor.
Dive into the Digital Crop Advisor Features
Global Grower Management
For farmers’ trusted advisors such as agronomists, global grower management is made easy with a main screen map-based view that shows activity for multiple growers at one time. This view serves as an agronomic data hub, making it easy to manage the availability, integrity, and security of data.
View key grower information such as name and contact information while also seeing map-based field locations. Legacy and current agronomic data at the field level are viewable for benchmarking purposes. Global customer management streamlines the process of growing customers and growing customer success season after season.
Precision Agriculture Capabilities
Our mapping does even more than geolocate fields! Satellite imagery with a 5-day revisit time cycle allows users to view both soil-adjusted biomass and vegetation biomass indexes. This biomass imagery allows for zone creation and precise scouting. Soil characteristic data is available, as well as crop moisture. Users get a unique bird’s-eye view of crop progress throughout the growing season, making it easy to determine field performance and assess nutritional needs.
Nutritional Requirements
Once current field and crop conditions are well understood, crop nutrition management and optimization are simple. Users can build recommendations for up to 12 crop-essential nutrients and ensure those recommendations are specific to the crop type, variety, and expected yield.
Our software is an integrated solution that helps field agronomists create tailored, customized crop nutrition plans which may include controlled-release fertilizers. Site-specific recommendations are generated using inputs such as yield uptake, historical crop performance, removal rate, soil characteristics, environmental impact, and more. Users can even segment nutritional needs based on phenological stages to ensure fertilizers are as efficient as possible.
Laboratory Analysis
Soil, water, and tissue analyses are inputs to fertilization adjustments based on the crop’s specific needs. Information from these scientific sources further specifies the specific nutritional needs for crops before they’re planted and as they grow. This dataset adds increasing precision to the recommendations for nutrition management.
Nutritional Fulfillment
Agronomic data from several sources is used to create the automated fertilization plan – an actionable recommendation with measurable benefits to crop productivity and sustainability. Users can create an automated fertilization plan to meet crop nutritional requirements. The approach can be customized and adjusted based on a grower’s wants, needs, and local availability. Recommendations are compared to the specific crop’s nutrient surplus or deficiency at each phenological stage within the growing season.
Nutritional Plan Overview
The automated fertilization plan has instant reporting functionality that can be shared with the click of a button through email, pdf, text, or WhatsApp. The plan overview includes all agronomic information, including the crop type, seasonal graphs, crop requirement tables, recommended products and application rates, and the sustainability rating of that specific crop nutrient recommendation plan.
The report gives a comprehensive view of the most critical crop protocol management information for growers to put into action. The Nutritional Plan Overview is a great reporting feature for advisors, farmers, and applicators depending on the depth of information included.
Sustainability
The nutritional plan overview includes a sustainability section that shares a detailed carbon footprint assessment of the nutrition recommendations for that crop. This feature allows benchmarking for future recommendations to continue refining the nutrition approach for crop productivity and environmental sustainability.
Use it now!
How can the Digital Crop Advisor crop nutrition decision support system fit in an agronomic practice or on a farm? Easy-to-use functionality is available now, including pre-season management adjustments to customize nutritional recommendations based on a variety of crop protocols.
Use pre-season and mid-season lab analysis integration (soil, water, and tissue) to make crop nutrition optimization dynamic. Global customer management, nutritional requirements and fulfillment, lab analysis, and sustainability information can all easily be at the fingertips of agronomists and growers.
Integrated Nutrient Management In Sustainable Agriculture
More targeted crop nutrition management means more effective use of fertilizers and fewer resources wasted through leaching or ineffective application. The Sustainability Section takes the guesswork out of determining the environmental impact of crop-essential nutrients through big data.
Benchmarking for future recommendations ensures sustainability continues to improve with additional seasons and additional data. Meeting crop nutrient needs to maximize yields while reducing environmental impact becomes easier and more precise over time.
Environmental sustainability is an opportunity for all agriculturalists. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is aligned with five aspects of the Zero Hunger Challenge; the first pillar is Sustainable Food Systems. Supporting soil health means naturally sequestering carbon and building climate resilience.
Among other things, principles for sustainable soil management include protecting the soil from chemical degradation, restoring degraded lands, maintaining water quality, and enhancing soil productivity based on its natural capacity. Integrated nutrient management in sustainable agriculture addresses these pillars.
Precision agriculture tools are a data-driven way to implement crop protocol and integrated nutrition management. Agmatix’s Digital Crop Advisor customized fertilization planning tool enables farmers and their advisors to easily take action towards improving or protecting soil health while maximizing productivity and yields.
