Recipient Organization
VERIS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
601 N. BROADWAY
SALINA,KS 67401
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Nitrogen affects proteins, enzymes and metabolic processes and is essential for crop growth. While annual usage varies based on world economic conditions, approximately 80,000,000 metric tons of fertilizer N are applied annually in the world, of which more than 10,000,000 tons are applied annually in the United States. If crops don?t have an adequate supply of nitrogen, significant yield losses can occur. Consequently, growers typically apply an extra margin of fertilizer as insurance against possible yield reduction from under-application. Excessive nitrogen applications create a number of problems. First, excess nitrogen rates can contaminate water resources. Nitrogen lost from Midwest farm fields is a leading cause of the hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Second, wasted nitrogen can cause a significant reduction in profitability, well beyond the cost of the wasted nitrogen. On crops like potatoes and sugar beets, excess nitrogen can cause a reduction in crop quality. Third, there is a negative impact to our atmosphere from applying nitrogen that is not consumed by the crop. Unused nitrogen enters the atmosphere as a potent greenhouse gas. As US farm policy becomes increasingly based on soil and water-quality initiatives, individual farm sustainability may be affected by a farmer?s ability to maintain production levels under closer scrutiny, and even mandates on the amount of fertilizer used. For each of these factors, improvements in managing nitrogen properly will increase the sustainability of their agro-economic production systems. These improvements include accurate assessments of available nitrogen already in the soil. Current approaches employ conventional soil sampling and lab analysis. Sampling depths required for nitrate are relatively deep. As a result, nitrate sampling is laborious, time-consuming, and expensive. Because the samples must be submitted to a testing lab for analysis, the delay in receiving results is a major problem for growers needing to apply fertilizer immediately. As a result of these and other obstacles, many fields that would benefit from improved nitrogen management are not sampled at all, or not sampled with the density required for accurate variable rate prescriptions. The Veris Technologies Automated Soil Measurement System will collect and analyze nitrate and other soil properties to a depth of 24? rapidly, accurately, and economically. The System will perform the measurements automatically, with no action required by the operator. Based on typical zone sampling for nitrate, this system will have a daily capacity of several hundred acres, and will be able to perform these measurements for a competitive price versus conventional sampling and lab analyses. This will offer growers major improvements in fertilizer management, reducing sampling cost, shortening turnaround time for soil test information, increasing precision of site-specific fertilizer applications.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Develop and test an Automated, In-Field Soil Measurement system consisting of a soil sampling module and an analysis module for soil nitrate, potassium, and pH. The system will have fully automated operation in order to collect and analyze soil with no additional action from the operator, after process has been initiated. Accuracy goal: RMSE 5 ppm nitrate compared to lab result. Cost per sample goal: $1.00. Customers for a commercial Automated Soil Measurement system include agronomic and crop consultants, fertilizer suppliers, and large growers. The system will be configured differently for different markets and field conditions. For example, in the northern plains, soil sampling is often done with a probe mounted inside the pickup cab. In some areas, sampling is done with an ATV. Other deployment methods may include tractor 3-point hitch mounting, and pickup bed mounting. The system will be prototyped as individual soil collection and Soil Analysis Modules comprising a skid-mounted system. The skid may be mounted in the bed of a pickup, attached as a 3-point hitch to a tractor, and would become part of a wheeled cart for pulling behind an ATV. The modules could be separated to allow the soil collection module to be mounted inside a pickup cab, with analysis module mounted elsewhere in the cab. Power for the soil probe will be provided by a gasoline engine powered hydraulic power pack, currently in production at Veris Technologies, unless hydraulics are available on vehicle such as in tractor-mounted configuration. Other items will be powered either by vehicle and supplementary 12V DC system, or by 110 AC generator.
Project Methods
A hydraulic soil probe will be designed and constructed for probing to 24 inch depths. Probe will make use of current Veris probe technology, but scaled down due to shallower sampling needs. A soil compositing/subsampling system will be designed, built and tested, utilizing at least two bins. A method of moving the soil from the compositing bin into the soil analysis module will be designed and constructed. The soil analysis module will prepare the soil for measurement by the soil sensors, calibrate sensors, sense the soil, and clean sensors and measurement components. Testing will be conducted in at least five Major Land Resource Areas (MLRA) representing major cropping areas, including northern plains (ND, SD, MT), central plains (KS, NE, CO), corn belt (IA, IL, IN, OH), mid-south/Delta (AR, MS, LA, AL), east/southeast (GA, SC, NC, VA). The west coast will also be included if possible. Field tests will be conducted on at least 20 fields. Results from Systems will be compared to laboratory analyses of soil samples collected from zones sampled with system. Metrics will include correlation co-efficients and root-mean-square-errors.