No abstract

In response to global calls for sustainable food production, we identify two diverging paradigms to address the future of agriculture. We explore the possibility of uniting these two seemingly diverging paradigms of production-oriented and ecologically oriented agriculture in the form of precision agroecology. Merging precision agriculture technology and agroecological principles offers a unique array of solutions driven by data collection, experimentation, and decision support tools. We show how the synthesis of precision technology and agroecological principles results in a new agriculture that can be transformative by (1) reducing inputs with optimized prescriptions, (2) substituting sustainable inputs by using site-specific variable rate technology, (3) incorporating beneficial biodiversity into agroecosystems with precision conservation technology, (4) reconnecting producers and consumers through value-based food chains, and (5) building a just and equitable global food system informed by data-driven food policy. As a result, precision agroecology provides a unique opportunity to synthesize traditional knowledge and novel technology to transform food systems. In doing so, precision agroecology can offer solutions to agriculture’s biggest challenges in achieving sustainability in a major state of global change.

Data-driven decision making in agriculture can be augmented by utilizing the data gathered from precision agriculture technologies to make the most informed decisions that consider spatiotemporal specificity. Decision support systems utilize underlying models of crop responses to generate management recommendations, yet there is uncertainty in the literature on the best model forms to characterize crop responses to agricultural inputs likely due for the most part to the variability in crop responses to input rates between fields and across years. Seven fields with at least three years of on-farm experimentation, in which nitrogen fertilizer rates were varied across the fields, were used to compare the ability of five different model types to forecast crop responses and net-returns in a year unseen by the model. All five model types were fit for each field using all permutations of the three years of data where two years were used for training and a third was held out to represent a “future” year. The five models tested were a frequentist based non-linear sigmoid function, a generalized additive model, a non-linear Bayesian regression model, a Bayesian multiple linear regression model and a random forest regression model. The random forest regression typically resulted in the most accurate forecasts of crop responses and net-returns across most fields. However, in some cases the model type that produced the most accurate forecast of grain yield was not the same as the model producing the most accurate forecast of grain protein concentration. Models performed best when the data used for training models was collected from years with similar weather conditions to the forecasted year. The results are important to developers of decision support tools because the underlying models used to simulate management outcomes and calculate net-returns need to be selected with consideration for the spatiotemporal specificity of the data available.

Few mechanisms turn field-specific ecological data into management recommendations for crop production with appropriate uncertainty. Precision agriculture is mainly deployed for machine efficiencies and soil-based zonal management, and the traditional paradigm of small plot research fails to unite agronomic research and effective management under farmers’ unique field constraints. This work assesses the use of on-farm experiments applied with precision agriculture technologies and open-source data to gain local knowledge of the spatiotemporal variability in agroeconomic performance on the subfield scale to accelerate learning and overcome the bias inherent in traditional research approaches. The on-farm precision experimentation methodology is an approach to improve farmers’ abilities to make site-specific agronomic input decisions by simulating a distribution of economic outcomes for the producer using field-specific crop response models that account for spatiotemporal uncertainty in crop responses. The methodology is the basis of a decision support system that includes a six-step cyclical process that engages precision agriculture technology to apply experiments, gather field-specific data, incorporate modern data management and analytical approaches, and generate management recommendations as probabilities of outcomes. The quantification of variability in crop response to inputs and drawing on historic knowledge about the field and economic constraints up to the time a decision is required allows for probabilistic inference that a future management scenario will outcompete another in terms of production, economics, and sustainability. The proposed methodology represents advancement over other approaches by comparing management strategies and providing the probability that each will increase producer profits over their previous input management on the field scale.

Low nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is ubiquitous in agricultural systems, with mounting global scale consequences for both atmospheric aspects of climate and downstream ecosystems. Since NUE-related soil characteristics such as water holding capacity and organic matter are likely to vary at small scales (< 1 ha), understanding the influence of soil characteristics on NUE at the subfield scale (< 32 ha) could increase fertilizer NUE. Here, we quantify NUE in four conventionally managed dryland winter-wheat fields in Montana following multiple years of sub-field scale variation in experimental N fertilizer applications. To inform farmer decisions that incorporates NUE, we developed a generalizable model to predict subfield scale NUE by comparing six candidate models, using ecological and biogeochemical data gathered from open-source data repositories and from normal farm operations, including yield and protein monitoring data. While NUE varied across fields and years, efficiency was highest in areas of fields with low N availability from both fertilizer and estimated mineralization of soil organic N (SON). At low levels of applied N, distinct responses among fields suggest distinct capacities to supply non-fertilizer plant-available N, suggesting that mineralization supplies more available N in locations with higher total N, reducing efficiency for any applied rate. Comparing modelling approaches, a random forest regression model of NUE provided predictions with the least error relative to observed NUE. Subfield scale predictive models of NUE can help to optimize efficiency in agronomic systems, maximizing both economic net return and NUE, which provides a valuable approach for optimization of nitrogen fertilizer use.