Applications of precision agriculture in horticultural crops

Abstract

Farmer and consumer are driving the request for sustainable production of fruit and vegetables. Precision agriculture, the consideration of spatial and temporal variability for increasing efficiency of resources, has been developed over last twenty five years and was initially applied to field crops. Its application to tree crops and vegetables started later and has been developing with increasing number of publications as well as research calls in the 21st. century. First applications were described for mechanical harvesting of horticultural crops with commercial solutions for harvesting fruit that is subjected to processing. A review of methodical approaches and upcoming challenges for precise management of tree crops and vegetables are covered in this paper, addressing horticulturists as well as researchers working in precision agriculture. The precision agriculture domains with specific implications in horticultural crops captured are: data collection, yield mapping, remote sensing, quality mapping, and variable rate application. The spatial and temporal variability in orchards as well as effects of site-specific application of inputs are documented in this paper. Advances in quality analysis in-situ are listed for horticultural crops that could be well linked to assurance schemes.