Prof. Raj Khosla
Professor of Precision Agriculture & Head of Agronomy Department
Kansas State University Email: rkhosla@ksu.edu
Precision Agriculture has been around for over three decades. The first decade had a strong focus on technology and GNSS, the second decade focused on quantifying spatial variability in soils, and the third decade spent significant time on science and technology of precision management of nutrients and beyond. Now, with increasing adoption of Precision management techniques and practices there is interest in harnessing the power of data to grapple the new paradigm of making management decision based on evidence. The success of future farming practices, output, efficiency, and sustainability would rely heavily on “farming the data” as much as “farming the land”. This presentation will empower the audience with research-based information on how precision agriculture is embracing information and communication technologies, including Artificial Intelligence and numerous aspects of big-data to transform agronomy and crop production systems. This presentation will include examples of where big-data has been pivotal in addressing agronomic challenges as well as the greater role big-data can play in enhancing our understanding of variability in crops and soil properties as well as analyzing spatially dependent datasets to make highly accurate and timely agronomic decisions.