Цель исследования - дать характеристику и проанализировать агротехнические процессы защиты растений с использованием современных информационно-коммуникационных технологий (ICT). Рамки исследования охватывают анализ защиты растений в сельском хозяйстве. Методы исследования включают анализ литературы и эмпирические наблюдения избранных ICT, применяемых в Польше. В результате, автор приходит к выводу, что необходимы дальнейшие исследования в этом направлении и определяет их основные пути.
Ключевые слова: агрологистика, ICT (информационно-коммуникационные технологии), GPS, ГЛОНАСС, RFID, защита растений
M. Matulewski,
PhD,
PoznaD School of Logistics,
PoznaD, Poland
Application of Modern ICT in Precision Agriculture. A Case Study of Selected Agro-technical Measures
The aim of the paper is to characterize and analyze agro-technical processes of plant protection with the usage of state-of-the-art ICT solutions. The scope of the paper is the analysis of plant protection in agrarian practice. The research methods included the analysis of pertinent literature and empirical observation of selected ICT solutions implemented in Poland. As a result the author draws a conclusion that further research in this respect is required and point out its recommended directions.
Keywords: Agrologistics, ICT (information and Communications Technology), GPS (Global Positioning System), GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification), plant protection
Introduction
The author deals with issues connected with the usage of modern information and communication technologies in precision agriculture. The research will be limited to selected aspects of the implementation of such solutions in economic practice. It is extremely important right now because the global population and the demand for basic nutrients is growing. Nowadays we may observe some development trends as a result of which the global demand for crop calories and crop protein are growing. According to the research carried out by American scholars (observations and mathematical models) the global demand for crop calories will increase by 100% ± 11% and the global demand for crop protein will increase by 110% ± 7% from 2005 to 2050 (Tilmana et al.). What is more in accordance with the research carried out by Ramankutty et al. “During the 20th century, the cropland base diminished greatly (from ∼ 0.75 ha per person in 1900 to ∼ 0.35 ha per person in 1990). This loss of croplands was not globally uniform: more than half the world’s population, living in developing nations, lost nearly two-thirds of their per capita cropland base. The distribution of croplands has become increasingly skewed —in 1990, 80% of the population lived off less than 0.35 ha per person. While agricultural yields have generally increased, they have barely kept pace with population growth in developing nations. Overall, the global food production system is becoming increasingly vulnerable to regional disruptions because of our increasing reliance on expensive technological options to increase agricultural production, or on global food trade” (Ramankutty, Foley, and Olejniczak).
Furthermore, Raftery claims that “Analysis of these data reveals that, contrary to previous literature, the world population is unlikely to stop growing this century. There is an 80% probability that world population, now 7.2 billion people, will increase to between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion in 2100” (Gerlan et al.).
Consequently, as a result of the trends presented above the demand for the food production is also growing. It should be stressed that over half of crops are cultivated in four countries that is to say China, the USA, India and Russia. Moreover the only food production surplus is generated by the USA and Russia and those two countries export it. The production of crops in China and India, in which one third of the whole world population lives, is not sufficient to cover the local demand (ROLNICTWO na Zwiecie). As far as agricultural production and its efficiency is concerned, the situation changes rapidly. What contributes to those dynamic changes is a set of various factors. We may enumerate here legal, social, as well as agrarian factors. Legal factors which should be mentioned here include landownership. For instance the productivity increased rapidly in Russia after 2002 when the Parliament enacted a law about land privatisation. When we talk about social factors we should remember that even in well developed countries a higher rate of population is employed in agriculture for instance it is 2% of the population in USA, 10% in Russia or 13% in Poland (Employment in agriculture (% of total employment)). Agrarian factors encompass the ubiquitous mechanisation and automation: applying new, more efficient, more resistant and resilient types of plants, better measures of crop protection or new ground levelling techniques.
The process of plant protection with the usage of ICT in agrilogistics.
Production of crops is one of the most important factors affecting the productivity of fields which are at the disposal of farmers. At the same time the participation of costs of plant protection substances in the structure of total costs, which must be borne in order to produce crops, is relatively low. If we take as an example spring barley, the direct costs of barley production are composed of: mineral fertilisers 28%, harvest and transportation 27%, plant protection substances 13%, seeds for sowing 11% (Klikocka, GBowacka, and Juszczak). However, in accordance with the results of research plant protection substances must be applied. Zwicicki states that “if we assume that the potential crops cultivated all over the world amount to 100%, we may harvest only 30.3% of the amount without the plant protection substances. The applied measures of plant protection limit losses and help increase crops by 27.6%. We still lose about 42.1% of all crops as a result of the lack of plant protection, insufficient efficiency of plant protection or the fact that it is not cost efficient” (Zwicicki et al. 2011). We should analyse this problem from a broad perspective. The term plant protection should be understood as a set of activities aiming at the limitation of losses caused by disease, pests and weeds by applying methods which are acceptable as far as their impact on environment and human health is concerned. Such a stance has also been adopted by the Polish legislator who has introduced the duty to apply rules of integrated plant protection by all professional users of plant protection substances starting from 1 January 2014. It is a direct consequence of implementing article 14 of the Directive no. 2009/128/EC and the Regulation no. 1107/2009. Those provisions state that protection means must be applied in a proper way. It should be understood as applying means as a result of which plants will be protected in a manner safe for human health and environment. As a result chemical pesticides should be replaced with low pesticide chemicals or hybrid solutions.
Therefore biological, physical or other nonchemical methods of eliminating unfavourable organisms are applied. What is more guidelines included in the Directive 2009/128/EC suggest that hybrid solutions other than chemical ones be applied in the majority of cases. Additionally, the procedure of prevention and/or suppression of harmful organisms should be achieved or supported among other options especially by:
— crop rotation,
— use of adequate cultivation techniques (e.g. stale seedbed technique, sowing dates and densities, under-sowing, conservation tillage, pruning and direct sowing),
— use, where appropriate, of resistant/tolerant cultivars and standard/certified seed and planting material,
— use of balanced fertilisation, liming and irrigation/drainage practices,
— preventing the spreading of harmful organisms by hygiene measures (e.g. by regular cleansing of machinery and equipment),
— protection and enhancement of important beneficial organisms, e.g. by adequate plant protection measures or the utilisation of ecological infrastructures inside and outside production sites.
If there is a need to apply pesticides in order to protect crops one should limit to a minimum risks to the user, other humans, non-target animal and plant species, biodiversity and the environment. Therefore, there is a need to apply ICT in this area. One of the things which are applied are multidimensional algorithms of decision-making. Decision-making support systems which are applied in crop production are interactive and take advantage of knowledge on the basis of statistical analysis or functional analysis of factors affecting crop production such as the threat generated by harmful organisms. They are frequently equipped with elaborate analytical procedures which may be implemented by combining them with numeric models and expert systems. The interface of the decision-making support system has been prepared in order to facilitate decision-making process based on generated information. The main aim of the system is to inform the user about the most probable result of applied crop enhancement procedures.
There are numerous solutions of that sort. The author will only discuss selected systems of plant protection. One of them is called PIORIN. It is a system created and supervised by the National Inspection for Plant Protection and Seed Production (PaDstwowa Inspekcja Ochrony Ro[lin i Nasiennictwa). It is applied nationwide in Poland. It is composed of relational databases prepared for the territory of Poland and it includes the index of crops more significant economically in a given territory as well as the list of pests which may lead to significant losses. On the basis of observations and analyses of statistically representative samples of cultivated fields the system informs about the most probable date of appearance of specific pests and the recommended methods of counteracting them. The second system supporting decision-making process in respect to plant protection is called “Pest Signalling”. It has been created and is supported by the Institute of Plant Protection (Instytut Ochrony Ro[lin – IOR PIB). Similarly as PRIORIN, on the basis of research carried out in selected farm lands, the system enables to forecast the stage of development of pests in short, medium and long-term perspectives in respect of the calendar year for specific localisations. What is more, this information is updated by data obtained from PRIORIN on the occurrence of pests. Consequently, the system creates economic thresholds which are calculated on the basis of the harmfulness of a given pest, that is to say, the economic losses induced by the activities of pests. When the thresholds are reached, the system suggests optimal agro-technical activities of protecting crops against harmful impact of pests.
The next system under scrutiny is called “Monitoring of potato blight”. Created and supervised by the already mentioned Institute of Plant Protection, the system supports decision-making in the process of potato protection. It is based on three fundamental Internet applications which ensure its effective operation. The first one is designed to signal the general nation-wide deadline for the first potato protection measure based on meteorological data which are transmitted on a regular basis from meteorological stations of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management from the territory of the whole Poland. The second Internet application is designed to set the local deadline for the first potato protection measure based on meteorological data which are transmitted on the regular basis from meteorological stations located in given regions (for instance the regions of Great Poland, Lower Silesia, Kujavia and Pomerania, West Pomerania). The deadline is set on the basis of temperature, humidity and precipitation. The third Internet application is used to transmit information about the results of monitoring of potato plantations all over the country. The results of monitoring of the current state of potato blight, directly after feeding the data into the system, are correct and presented in a graphical and table formats. Moreover, it should be stressed that the results of observations of fields are fed into the system once a week by trained workers who represent research institutes (COBORU, IOR-PIB) and institutes of agricultural counselling. It seems that in the future especially in the periods of intense development of the disease the information is going to be fed into the system more frequently. An extremely important element of fight against pests and disease is the so-called “healthy planting material”. As a result of the importance of the issue in question it is regulated by various laws for instance the Council Directive 92/33/EEC of 28 April 1992 on the marketing of vegetable propagating and planting material, other than seed (DYREKTYWA RADY NR 92/33/EWG z dnia 28 kwietnia 1992 r. w sprawie obrotu materiaBem rozmno|eniowym oraz nasadzeniowym warzyw, innym ni| nasiona). The system of supporting decision-making processes is also functioning in this scope and it is called “PDO variety recommendation”. Created and supervised by the Research Centre for Cultivar Testing (Centralny O[rodek Badania Odmian Ro[lin Uprawnych COBORU), the system enables to fulfil the requirements of legal regulations and supplies valuable data such as:
• information concerning functioning of the post-registration program of variety experimentation,
• list of varieties of plants recommended for specific regions,
• publication of results of post-registration variety experimentation in electronic version,
• application “Comparison of plant varieties” helpful in choosing proper variety of plans for cultivation,
• application “Variety features” informing about the economic value of a given variety and providing information about its registration in the national register of varieties, data concerning cultivator, power of attorney, and the entity responsible for preserving a given variety etc.
• results of experiments with garden plant varieties carried out by COBORU outside the framework of Post-registration variety experimentation program (“MINISTERSTWO ROLNICTWA I ROZWOJU WSI” 2015).
The next element which relates to the application of ICT technologies for plant protection is the selection of the proper measure of counteracting specific, frequently local, threats. There are general guidelines (encompassing existing legal regulations and practical knowledge based on research and long-lasting observations) which clearly inform that pesticides may only be used as a supplementary activity. Furthermore, there are also algorithms which help select specific pesticides in accordance with the following guidelines:
• one should apply selective pesticides which are not toxic or toxic to a limited extent for beneficial organisms,
• one should apply specific selective methods of application of pesticides. Some pesticides may be applied in such a way that they do not harm beneficial organisms. Plant protection substances should be applied by spray application and in the course of irrigation. Other methods of application include the seed coating with chemicals and limiting the application of pesticides to the period when plans are relatively young,
• one should apply pesticides with a short preharvest interval (some of them may be lethal for beneficial organisms which remain on the plants at the moment of spraying but their remnants are present in the crops only for a short time),
• one should avoid excessive amount of dust in crops because it limits the development of beneficial organisms.
The last element connected with the application of ICT in plant protection is the method of its direct application. The process itself should be started with the precise analysis of local conditions. Farmers and researchers have found out that the following applications are very useful: the Geographic Information System (GIS) and its component parts such as the Land Information System (LIS). The data which are gathered and stored in such systems allow for constant supervision of conditions which clearly affects technical possibilities and total costs of carrying out such operations (there are some prerequisites which are necessary for the implementation of such operations e.g. installation of wireless sensors which among others enable to measure automatically soil humidity) (Sakthipriya 2014). Modern machinery, which is used for chemical protection of plants, are equipped in very sophisticated computer systems (processing data obtained from GIS and LIS and data obtained locally from wireless sensors) and create updated maps of fields. Moreover, they are equipped with sophisticated solutions such as pneumatic steering sections of sprinklers which enable to steer the sprinkling process efficiently. The system sprinkles plants selectively which generates significant savings of the liquid and limits crop losses which are connected with over-dosing chemicals. Additionally, one may apply automatic systems of dosage of chemicals in the course of sprinkling. Such solutions are based on the advanced optical sensors which are combined with dosing pipes. The system sends special radiation in the direction of the soil, detects the real content of chlorophyll in organic material and sends a message concerning the required amount of liquid which is to be dosed by the central steering system. Thanks to that, the spraying is selective and takes place only in places (over plants) where it is really required.
Conclusions
To sum up, it should be remembered that the processes connected with plant protection are extremely important for the obtained economic results of agricultural production. It is a direct consequence of the fact that not applying methods of protection results in significant economic losses. Furthermore, the processes connected with the elimination of negative impact of pests should be carried out not only with the usage of chemicals (pesticides) but first and foremost with the significant participation of all available methods of plant protection especially non-chemical ones. The efficiency of the protection processes which are carried out may be increased by the application of ICT. In accordance with credible results of research the application of information systems integrating GPS and the GNSS (Dow, Neilan, and Rizos 2009) for location of machinery and using data from GIS and LIS may increase the accuracy of performed activities to a few centimetres. Moreover, applying optical sensors and very precise and quick solutions in the construction of sprinklers additionally increases the efficiency of the process which is carried out. The application of optical sensors and direct steering of sprinklers may help achieve savings up to 80% in comparison with conventional systems which is a direct result of the fact that the sensor detects plant tissue on the basis of the chlorophyll content, carries out its chemical analysis on the spot and doses amounts of needed pesticides precisely (WeedSeeker). Comparing the results with other solutions right now applied in precision agriculture the savings may amount to 23% (Doruchowski 2008).
What is more, the application of the methodology of integrated plant protection supported by ICT (for instance Internet systems of supporting decision-making) enhances the efficiency of activities and minimises the threat for human and animal health as well as natural environment.
There are no exhaustive results of research on the ubiquitousness of the application of such solutions in practice. There is no statistical research so far which would provide research material helping to assess the impact of ICT on plant protection. Therefore the research in this scope should be continued in order to obtain necessary data.
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ИСТОЧНИК: Логистика
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