New book: Precision Agriculture Basics, 2nd Edition

Precision agriculture is synonymous with innovation, and thanks to rapid advancements in technology, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and even our own understanding of the crop field, it’s no surprise that our ability to create the most efficient crop systems has quickly evolved, even over just a few years. That’s why, eight years after publishing their first book on precision agriculture, ASA, CSSA, and SSSA are publishing Precision Agriculture Basics, 2nd Edition this October. This new textbook expands on its predecessor by updating 15 of the first edition’s chapters and adding 17 new chapters that describe advancements in areas such as remote sensing technologies, AI in agriculture, soil health and soil biology, and precision conservation. 

Using information from the land to make agricultural decisions isn’t a new concept—in fact, humans have been doing just that for centuries. An often-taught example is the concept of the “three sisters” crops: Indigenous Americans would plant corn, beans, and squash together, knowing that the companion plants would create a harmonious trio that kept the soil fertile and the weeds out, which in turn increased food yields. And with years of farming and research under our belts, our understanding of how to support agricultural systems has only improved—today, precision agriculture takes that basic concept of using the land to inform management practices and pushes it to the next level. 

By gathering massive amounts of data from the field and analyzing it over space and time, precision agriculturalists aim to describe the variability within a crop field and design site-specific management plans to create productive yet efficient and sustainable cropping systems, making the most out of your crop with the least amount of inputs as possible. 

Editors David Clay, Skye Brugler, and Katsutoshi Mizuta are experts in soil health, climate-smart agriculture, crop inputs, and crop resilience. With an updated text that describes the latest research developments and an extensive library of training materials, they hope that Precision Agriculture Basics, 2nd Edition can be a helpful resource for anyone interested in precision agriculture.