IMPRESS

Improved precision in forage crop management

The overall aim of the project IMPRESS is to generate new knowledge and tools that enable farmers to time harvests and target nitrogen inputs in their forage production according to yield potential and desired feed quality. Furthermore, the developed technology and precision farming principles will assist farmers in identification and elimination of yield limiting factors. The approach to reach this goal is to develop a platform that integrates new knowledge of plant responses to nitrogen, novel algorithms for sensor based yield estimation, simple models for crop growth and soil N-mineralization, and real-time and predicted weather data.

Within this project, the CPA focuses mainly to develop a method for estimating grass yields based on tractor-mounted sensors and airborne sensors, which are mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). These robust estimates on yields will be used as input to the model being developed in other work packages for demand driven nitrogen fertilization, and for the identification of low-yielding areas.