Abstract
Site-Specific Management (SSM) implies that management practices are varied within fields based on local soil and crop conditions. Practices include fertilization, tillage, crop protection, seeding and planting. Modem techniques, such as GPS (Global Positioning Systems), on-the-go yield monitoring and remote sensing have shown that variation in crop condition and yield may be considerable within a single field. Such variation, and the potential for SSM, have until recently largely been ignored in agronomic research as emphasis has been on average values. SSM increases the efficiency of the use of natural resources and reduces losses of agrochemicals to the environment. However, variation in time also plays an important role: in SSM assumptions are made about the future when specific weather conditions are unknown. Systems analysis and simulation of crop growth and of solute fluxes are shown to play an important role in defining field-variability patterns in different years. A high-tech example from The Netherlands, dealing with growing potatoes, is compared with a low-tech example from Niger, where a very high spatial variability of millet growth is the basis for site-specific application of animal manure. To allow SSM, field experiments have to be initiated which are based on observed heterogeneity, rather than on assumed homogeneity. This represents a new paradigm for agronomic research.
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Bouma, J., Verhagen, J., Brouwer, J., Powell, J.M. (1997). Using systems approaches for targeting site-specific management on field level. In: Kropff, M.J., et al. Applications of Systems Approaches at the Field Level. Systems Approaches for Sustainable Agricultural Development, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0754-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0754-1_2
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