Achievements in precision agriculture, ATK company

Annual seminar was held by ATK company on February 12, 2020. As always,  it was the head of the company – Yuri Drobyazko. This time, he shared with the guests of the seminar information about precision farming elements, namely, differentiated fertilizer application.

For our country, precision agriculture is far from being some “space ” technologies, but is a real tool for increasing the yield of cultivated crops. Actually, not all users have fully understanding of all its intricacies, but every year such `specialists` become less and less. Due such companies as ATK kindly shares with all interesting information, as well as their achievements and successes.

One year ago, on the same seminar, Yurii Drobyazko told about a whole series of experiments that the ATK company was carrying on its fields (Lyubarsky district, Zhytomyr region). First of all, they experimented with corn seed sowing rates depending on the amount of organic matter (humus) in each analyzed hectare. It is important to mention that the agrochemical analysis on its fields ATK company made only per one hectare! Then, based on the results of soil sample analysis and fertilizer recommendations, ATK applied fertilizers in a differentiated way. That is, fertilizers were applied not all over the field, but only in those places (in those hectares) where the soil’s nutrient content is in low concentrations, that is, only where they are really needed. In this case, for control, in this area were fields without soil sampling.

In autumn 2019, yield maps of the analyzed fields (village Bezpechna, Zhytomyr region; soil type – chernozems) were created.

Field	Square, ha	Weight, t	Yield, t/ha	Humidity, %
357	19,8	273,6	13,82	22,5
137	5,00	71,1	14,22	21,5
138	53,6	694,3	12,95	21,1
139	151,5	2077,7	13,71	21,8
143	148,3	2066,3	13,93	22,0
144	102,0	1315,9	12,90	22,3
147	57,6	788,4	13,69	22,2

The average corn yield for this area was 13.54 t / ha (total area is 538 ha).

Now let’s look on the number of fertilizers that were applied in these fields:

Fertilizer	Quantity, t	Price, $	Fertility square, ha
Potassium chloride	37,0	12 617	309 hа (57,4 %)
Ammophos	22,4	8 579	194 hа (36,1 %)
Ammonium sulfate	22,3	4 460	223 hа (41,4 %)

Control field’s results (the same area, without soil sampling):

Field	Square, ha	Weight, t	Yield, t/ha	Humidity, %
142	11,0	132,8	12,07	21,2
145	113,0	1325,4	11,73	22,9
146	71,2	873,5	12,27	21,9
226	41,0	532,9	13,00	22,5
410	41,6	447,3	10,75	22,9

The average corn yield for this area was 11,96 t/ha

As you can see, the total amount of all applied fertilizers for this area is 25 656 US dollars. Accordingly, the total area is 538 hectares, we spent 48 $ on 1 hectare. Considering that the agrochemical analysis of 1 sample per 1 ha costs 50 $, total price for 1 ha is 98$. But at the same time, given the increase in yield (in contrast to the control fields), we get increase of average yield about 200$ per hectare. The difference is obvious!

For another area (village Zherebki, Zhytomyr region; soil type – chernozem), on which a similar experiment was conducted, were obtained such results:

Field	Square, ha	Weight, t	Yield, t/ha	Humidity, %
123	96,0	1122,7	11,69	22,2
200	137,8	1743,4	12,65	22,3
275	18,6	251,2	13,50	22,3
356	19,9	262,6	13,20	22,6
158	61,0	721,4	11,83	23,0
159	45,6	524,3	11,50	22,7
160	31,5	408,2	12,96	23,2
161	84,0	1004,2	11,96	23,5
163	131,8	1499,4	11,38	22,8
165	42,0	512,1	12,19	23,0
166	31,4	368,6	11,74	22,6
171	138,5	1619,6	11,69	22,2
173	34,6	390,8	11,30	22,8
174а	84,0	976,0	11,62	22,6
174b	32,7	405,8	12,42	23,8
175	25,0	280,0	11,20	23,3
176	136,0	1684,7	12,39	22,3
177	38,2	478,5	12,53	21,3
178	33,0	420,0	12,73	21,5
179	103,0	1388,1	13,48	22,4
181	122,0	1456,3	11,94	21,1
194	27,6	317,2	11,49	23,4

The average corn yield for this area was 12.1 t / ha (total area is 1474 ha).

Now let’s look on the number of fertilizers that were applied in these fields:

Fertilizer	Quantity, t	Price, $	Fertility square, ha
Potassium chloride	114,0	38 874	774 hа (52,5 %)
Ammophos	92,0	35 236	616 hа (41,8 %)
Ammonium sulfate	13,3	2 660	133 hа (9,0 %)

Control field’s results (the same area, without soil sampling):

Field	Square, ha	Weight, t	Yield, t/ha	Humidity, %
133	161,5	1778,8	11,01	22,3
134	172,3	1807,9	10,49	21,2
196	159,2	2546,1	9,82	21,9
440	10,2	129,0	12,65	22,1
164	73,8	855,7	11,59	22,5
167	110,0	1109,7	10,09	21,9
172	6,38	70,8	11,10	23,6

The average corn yield for this area was 10.46 t/ha

As you can see, the total amount of all fertilizers applied for this area is 76,770 US dollars. Accordingly, the total area is 1474 hectares, we spent per one hectare 52$. Adding 50 US dollars (agrochemical analysis of 1 sample per 1 ha), in total for this area we spent 102$ per 1 ha. In this case, the yield increase about 200$ per one hectare.

In the end, we want to note that ATK company is not going to stop on their achievements! And it plans to further developing and improve the experience and knowledge acquired during the work! We wish good luck and large yields!