Research need from Focus Group: Use remote sensing tools and practices to get a better understanding and matching of fertilisation with crop requirements

This need for research has been identified in FG 19 on “Nutrient recycling”. If you want to know more about it, check the final report of the Focus Group.

The future in fertilisation lies largely in developing and applying smart systems based on (remote) sensing and integration of various nutrients as well as organic matter in such intelligent systems. Precision farming combines environmental with agronomic benefits. Achieving these combined goals will prove more challenging when dealing with biobased fertilisers whose nutrient use efficiency is not as exactly defined as is the case for pure chemically formulated mineral fertilisers. Technologies exist for optic sensing of crop nitrogen needs (based on colour), on-tractor metre-by-metre measurement of crop yield. However further research and development is needed on how to bring real-time analysis into precision farming e.g. for phosphorus management for which to date, only non-instant sample soil tests exist.