1st Edition

GIS Applications in Agriculture

Edited By Francis J. Pierce, David Clay Copyright 2007
    216 Pages 109 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    The increased efficiency and profitability that the proper application of technology can provide has made precision agriculture the hottest developing area within traditional agriculture. The first single-source volume to cover GIS applications in agronomy, GIS Applications in Agriculture examines ways that this powerful technology can help farmers produce a greater abundance of crops with more efficiency and at lower costs.

    Each chapter describes the nature of a problem, examines the purpose and scope of a GIS application, presents the methods used to develop the application, and then goes on to provide results and offer a conclusion as well as supporting information. When appropriate, the chapters present the underlying statistical approach for the GIS software that is used.  Applicable data sets and color maps produced by use of GIS are included for download at the CRC webiste.

    Concentrating more on the approach and less on the specific software, the authors describe the methods used to develop an application and discuss limitations to the algorithms and the programming code used. They then summarize the application in terms of what it does, how it works, its limitations, and its potential uses. The book provides a toolkit for the acquisition, management, and analysis of spatial data throughout the agriculture value chain.

    Application of GIS to Integrated Pest Management on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Land, B. Seelig and J. Alfonso
    Nitrogen Management in Sugar Beet Using Remote Sensing and GIS, D.W. Franzen
    Using Historical Management to Reduce Soil Sampling Errors, D.E. Clay, N. Kitchen, C.G. Carlson, J. Kleinjan, and J. Chang
    Developing Productivity Zones from Multiple Years of Yield Monitor Data, J. Kleinjan, D.E. Clay, C.G. Carlson, and S.A. Clay
    Site-Specific Weed Management in Growers’ Fields: Predictions from Hand-Drawn Maps, L.J. Wiles, R. Bobbitt, and P. Westra
    Map Quality Assessment for Site-Specific Fertility Management, T.G. Mueller
    Gleaning More Information from Yield Data, T.S. Murrell, Q.B. Rund, and H.F. Reetz, Jr.
    Soil Salinity Mapping Using ArcGIS, F. Cassel S.
    Using GIS and On-the-Go Soil Strength Sensing Technology for Variable-Depth Tillage Assessment, P. Andrade-Sanchez and S.K. Upadhyaya
    Collocating Multiple Self-Generated Data Layers, V.I. Adamchuk and C. Wang
    Index

    Biography

    Francis J. Pierce, David Clay

    "… as there is a distinct lack of introductory GIS texts or websites specifically relating geospatial technologies to agriculture, this series helps fill that void."

    – Roger Knouff, Arizona State University in Journal of Spatial Science, 2008