Precision farming systems literally represent a growing opportunity. He also is the author of The Precision Farming Primer, an online resource that discusses the use of GIS and related spatial technologies for site-specific management in production agriculture. H istorically, maps have played only a minor role in production agriculture. Precision farming, however, is poised to change this view. Whole-field management uses typical conditions to guide a single decision for an entire field, such as a single seeding rate or fertilization level.
Map analysis allows users to direct appropriate actions.
A GIS can be used to set up and evaluate on-farm testing. How a field is partitioned into smaller units plays an important part in precision farming. Management zones use a farmer's knowledge, air photos, terrain features, yield maps or other factors to subdivide a field into smaller areas considered homogeneous. Map surfaces, on the other hand, treat a field as a continuous surface by partitioning it into thousands of grid cells that track gradual transitions throughout the field. Each grid-cell in a map layer contains a value indicating the condition at that location.