Precision agriculture programmes across multiple crops
Managing multiple crops across a farm requires consistent decision-making while accounting for different growth stages, nutrient demands, and risk profiles. Integrated precision agriculture programmes use drone data and targeted interventions to deliver a joined-up approach that works across crops rather than treating each operation in isolation.
This project demonstrates how multispectral surveys, prescription mapping, and targeted drone operations can be combined into a coordinated programme applied across different crops and fields. The focus is on improving efficiency, consistency, and return on investment at whole-farm level.
The Situation
Farms growing multiple crops often face fragmented decision-making, with different inputs, timings, and strategies applied independently to each field or crop type. This can lead to inefficiencies, duplicated effort, and inconsistent results, particularly where variability exists across soils and field conditions.
Traditional management approaches frequently rely on uniform applications within individual crops without considering how variability patterns repeat across the farm. As a result, similar issues such as compaction, nutrient limitation, or drainage problems may be addressed repeatedly without a coordinated strategy.
Managing multiple crops also increases pressure on labour, machinery availability, and timing. Without clear, field-wide insight, it becomes difficult to prioritise interventions, plan workloads efficiently, and ensure inputs are applied where they deliver the greatest benefit across the whole rotation.
Objectives of the Project
- To create a coordinated precision agriculture approach across multiple crops
- To use consistent aerial data to understand variability at whole-farm level
- To support targeted interventions tailored to each crop’s requirements
- To improve efficiency of input use across the rotation
- To deliver measurable cost savings and performance improvements across the farm
