Variable-rate prescriptions – Fertilizer tool

Applying fertilizer is a common agricultural activity that can be completely automated with the correct implementation of variable-rate application technology (VRT).

The biggest problems with variable-rate applications are that farmers may not know how to create nutrient response zones on their farms or know how to assign rates to those zones. To solve these problems, Agremo developed a decision-aid tool for creating variable rate prescriptions.

How does it work?

Users identify field variability – plant health (Plant Vigor analysis), create management zones (Fertilizer Tool), assign rates (Fertilizer Tools), and create Prescription files (Variable-rate prescriptions). Based on this, users can optimize application operations by applying the right amount of nutrients to the right spots. 

Step 1

Go to the tools panel in the result tab.

Step 2

Select the fertilizer tool. 

Step 3

Enter all necessary information and click Apply button

• Planned date of application
• Pesticides type
• Tile size
  • Users have the ability to choose from three different tile size
    • 3×3 meter
    • 10×10 meter
    • 20×20 meter 
• Number of zones 
  • The number of zones that the user selects determines the number of zone ranges. Users can choose from two to six zones
• Manually enter rates to each zone
• Choose rate unit
  • Imperial units: 
    • US tons per acre (907.18474 kg)
    • Kilograms per acre
    • Grams per acre
    • Pounds per acre (0.45359237kg)
    • US Fluid per acre (0.0295735 liters)
    • Gallons per acre (3.785 liters)
  • Metric units: 
    • Metric tonnes per hectare (1000 kg)
    • Kilograms per hectare
    • Liters per hectare
    • Milliliters per hectare
• Choose zone range
  • The zone range represents the health percentage per zone. In this case, we have five zones, the first zone range is 0-20 which represents stress levels between 100% and 80% of stress. If we change the zone range to 0-25 it will represent stress levels between 100% and 75% of stress.
• Click on Apply button

Step 4

After applying variable rates click on the export button. 

Step 5

Export Rx shapefile and prescription PDF report will be generated and an info message will appear.

Creating Variable-rate prescriptions

An Rx or “Prescription” map is an electronic data file (shapefile ) containing specific information about input rates to be applied in every zone of a field.