A farm-level precision land management framework based on integer programming

PLoS One. 2017 Mar 27;12(3):e0174680. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174680. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Farmland management involves several planning and decision making tasks including seed selection and irrigation management. A farm-level precision farmland management model based on mixed integer linear programming is proposed in this study. Optimal decisions are designed for pre-season planning of crops and irrigation water allocation. The model captures the effect of size and shape of decision scale as well as special irrigation patterns. The authors illustrate the model with a case study on a farm in the state of California in the U.S. and show the model can capture the impact of precision farm management on profitability. The results show that threefold increase of annual net profit for farmers could be achieved by carefully choosing irrigation and seed selection. Although farmers could increase profits by applying precision management to seed or irrigation alone, profit increase is more significant if farmers apply precision management on seed and irrigation simultaneously. The proposed model can also serve as a risk analysis tool for farmers facing seasonal irrigation water limits as well as a quantitative tool to explore the impact of precision agriculture.

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture / methods*
  • California
  • Conservation of Natural Resources
  • Crops, Agricultural*
  • Decision Making*
  • Farms*
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Water Supply*

Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.