Scott and Luke Clark are farmers from Jamestown, in South Australia’s Mid North, cropping 1680ha. Scott and Luke are always interested in using data and new strategies to improve their efficiency and get the best possible use out of their hardware and software technology purchases. Recently, the Clarks invested in a Reefinator – an implement designed to renovate stoney outcrops in paddocks, with the intention of being more efficient with machinery and to open up otherwise un-arable areas to be cropped.
Luke came to Breezy Hill Precision Ag Services in March as he had noticed that volunteer canola had germinated in the areas of two of the paddocks that had been renovated with the Reefinator. Luke used Satamap Vegetation Index (SVI) biomass imagery of the paddocks in AgWorld, to compare with what he was seeing in his paddock inspections. It was evident that the areas of the field that had germinated with canola were clearly defined in the Satellite Imagery. Similar to NDVI, the Satamap Vegetation Index (SVI) exposes variability in vegetation by exploiting the difference in reflectance in the red and near infrared bands. SVI also uses the green band to help mitigate the effects of soil colour.
PCT AgCloud uses the same Satamap enabled SVI imagery as Agworld. However in PCT AgCloud we have the ability to ‘slice’ the imagery to paddock boundaries. We downloaded the boundaries for the paddocks from John Deere Operations Centre into PCT AgCloud to start the process. From here we were able to download the most recent SVI image for the fields. A spray prescription design was created for each field, spraying an 80L/ha brew of Glyphosate and Ester to the canola patches. We have had a lot of enquiry about this sort of application for SVI imagery. The section control system on the boomspray allowed the chemical to be sprayed out accurately to the prescription. We were very interested to put the theory to the test and see how it would go as it could have a fit in many summer spray situations.
The spray prescription was sent via John Deere Operations Centre straight to the R4038 boomspray.
The concept worked really well as the imagery picked up the canola plants very accurately, meaning we only sprayed 13% of one of our fields and 30% of the other. This spray run will hit the big plants we are targeting which means we can do our pre sowing spray at a lower rate, chemical saving for both passes, a win win.' - Luke Clarke
If you'd like to explore a one month free trial of PCT AgCloud for your farming business, you can check out our 'Trial PCT AgCloud' page below: