Comparative analysis of the environmental impact of conventional and precision spring wheat fertilization under various meteorological conditions

Abstract

Precision farming is being approached with hopes of discovering new decisions that could aid in managing and reducing the environmental impact of farming systems with increasing frequency. Analysis of the results obtained from a five-year research period has revealed no significant difference in the amount of produce received, irrespective of the fertilization technology (variable-rate fertilization (VRF) or conventional fertilization (CF)) used on spring wheat crops. However, in VRF, nitrogen fertilizer consumption was approximately 19% lower, and the fertilizer use efficiency was higher. The energy assessment of the fertilization technology indicated that the application of the VRF technology reduced the indirect energy inputs by 12.3%, which compared to CF, resulted in an approximately 9% higher energy efficiency and productivity. Meteorological conditions significantly affected not only the spring wheat yield, but also the nitrogen fertilizer consumption, efficiency, and energy indicators such as energy efficiency and productivity. The environmental assessment of these technologies also showed that nitrogen fertilizer accounted for about half of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Thus, the evaluation of these results obtained over the entire five-year research period indicated that when VRF was used, GHG emissions were 9.4% lower than when CF was used.

Keywords: Energy assessment; Greenhouse gas emissions; Nitrogen fertilization; Proximal sensors; Variable-rate technology.