What Role for Soil Testing in Precision Agriculture ?
Rob Bramley and Simon Cook Precision Agriculture Research Group, CSIRO Land and Water Decisions about fertiliser applications are fraught with uncertainty. Uncertainty about the outcome of an application of fertiliser is caused by unknown or uncontrolled variation about the condition of the soil to which it is applied, its fate, and the demand from the crop. Uncertainty can be eased by providing information which reduces ignorance about the likely outcomes of applying fertiliser, thereby increasing the decision-maker’s chances of success. For many years, soil testing has been promoted as a means of acquiring the necessary information for sound fertilizer management, and it is used to a greater or lesser extent in most of the agricultural systems around the world. Australia has tended to be a relatively low user of soil testing (0.34 samples km-2 compared, for example, to around 10 samples km-2 in the USA) for a range of reasons of which cost is probably the most important. In precision
