Variable Rate Fertilizer Application for Efficient, High Yield Vegetable Production

GeoVisual AnalyticsUSDA SBIR1 2023Project SummaryTitle:Variable Rate Fertilizer Application for Efficient High Yield Vegetable ProductionPI:Orrey Jeffrey L.Institution: GeoVisual Technologies Inc. dba GeoVisual AnalyticsRising input costs particularly for fertilizer have been an ongoing concern for agriculture ingeneral but more recently have become increasingly serious as global supplies have beendisrupted. For specialty crop farmers in particular this adds pressure to an industry that facesmultiple challenges that if left unaddressed could jeopardize the viable production of manyvegetable fruit and nut crops in the country. We propose to demonstrate a plant-by-plant precisionfertilization capability for cool season vegetable crops that will increase harvest yields whilereducing the overall amount of fertilizer applied. The solution will help farmers increase marginsin the face of escalating production costs while meeting increasingly stringent environmentalregulations. The overarching objectives of our variable rate application (VRA) approach are todetermine and apply an optimal amount of fertilizer for each plant to adjust for the inherent fieldand seed variations so that most plants meet customer specifications and are sold at harvest. Anadditional benefit of the anticipated capability will be less food waste employing the EPA FoodRecovery Hierarchy's most preferred method of reducing waste where the food is produced.Our innovation includes obtaining a priori information on a field's plant size distribution fromhigh resolution aerial imagery of the entire field. The size distribution will be used to determinean application prescription which will be sent to a mechanical controller on a tractor-mountedsprayer. Over time associated plant growth models will be augmented to account for the effectsof additional fertilizer possibly even accounting for different future varieties that are moredrought tolerant or less fertilizer hungry. We will leverage recent experimental results indicatingthat different fertilizer application amounts lead to different growth rates of iceberg lettuce so thatapplying different amounts to different sized plants will increase field uniformity at harvest andalso reduce total required fertilizer amounts per crop cycle. The proposed effort will validate andextend these preliminary findings to develop a unique capability for vegetable production. DuringPhase I we will determine geolocation accuracy requirements and evaluate if system componentscan meet them. We will assess timing and coordination requirements of aerial imagery collectionprocessing and conversion to a prescription map and we will evaluate spray controllerrequirements and performance for the VRA approach. We will assess the overall technicalfeasibility of the proposed concept and perform a preliminary cost-benefit analysis for VRAcommercialization in the vegetable industry. We plan to sell the precision fertilization capabilityas an add-on to subscription services we have already developed and commercialized for the freshproduce industry.