Frontiers and perspectives on research strategies in grassland technology

Abstract

Grassland scientists and farmers are increasingly faced with emerging new technologies and information systems that have been primarily developed in engineering sciences, in particular, precision agriculture, remote sensing, geographic information and biotechnology. Judgment upon whether the implementation of any of these technologies may be beneficial in economic and ecological respects is challenging, especially to those who have to make on-farm decisions. New technologies have been applied on grassland only partially and with some delay compared with arable land. However, as we will show here, there is scope for successful implementation of new technologies in various climatic regions and for a wide range of applications. The paper presents the most important recent developments of new technologies in agriculture that have scope for application in grasslands. It defines the relevant terms and processes, provides examples of successful implementation, and discusses future directions and research needs.

Evaluation of RGB-Based Vegetation Indices From Uav Imagery to Estimate Forage Yield in Grassland

“…Monitoring forage yield is of primary concern in managed grasslands for grazing, hay and silage production or biofuel production. Information on biomass and its spatial distribution within fields in high temporal and spatial resolution is an important step towards yield optimisation and nutrient balancing/budgeting as means of precision agriculture (PA) (Schellberg & Verbruggen, 2014). However, commonly applied manual measurement techniques of standing biomass such as clipping, disc or rising plate meters, or spectroradiometer measurements do not meet the requirements of a high resolution assessment of the in-field heterogeneity of standing biomass (Schellberg & Verbruggen, 2014).…”

“…Information on biomass and its spatial distribution within fields in high temporal and spatial resolution is an important step towards yield optimisation and nutrient balancing/budgeting as means of precision agriculture (PA) (Schellberg & Verbruggen, 2014). However, commonly applied manual measurement techniques of standing biomass such as clipping, disc or rising plate meters, or spectroradiometer measurements do not meet the requirements of a high resolution assessment of the in-field heterogeneity of standing biomass (Schellberg & Verbruggen, 2014). Analysing information of RGB images from consumer grade cameras mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can offer a cost efficient and near-real time assessment of forage yield with high temporal and spatial resolution (Hunt et al 2013).…”

Describing the Dynamic: Measuring and Assessing the Value of Plants in the Pasture

“…New technologies offer tomorrow's pasture researchers the ability to measure pasture growth dynamics in a cost‐effective manner (Schellberg and Verbruggen, 2014). Lasers (Radtke et al, 2010; Pittman, 2013), ultrasound (or sonic) (Fricke and Wachendorf, 2013; Shannon et al, 2013), high‐resolution satellite images (McEntee et al, 2013), global positioning systems (Coleman, 2005; Sather et al, 2013), and radio frequency identification (Nadimi et al, 2008) give innovative researchers new methods to rapidly quantify the soils, plants, animals, and even the people of pasture ecosystems.…”

“…New technologies offer tomorrow's pasture researchers the ability to measure pasture growth dynamics in a cost-effective manner (Schellberg and Verbruggen, 2014). rapidly quantify the soils, plants, animals, and even the people of pasture ecosystems.…”

Wild halophytic species as forage sources: Key aspects for plant breeding

“…Rangelands have proven beneficial in terms of production stability, improvement of nutrient mineralization and increase of activity of microorganisms (e.g., mycorrhizae) that promote plant growth (Schellberg et al., ). Moreover, rangelands have the potential to play a key role in the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in terms of global carbon storage and sequestration (O'Mara, ).…”