Soil-specific Farming: Precision Agriculture

Faced with challenges of resource scarcity and environmental degradation, it is important to adopt innovative farming systems that maximize resource efficiency while protecting the environment. Soil-Specific Farming: Precision Agriculture focuses on principles and applications of soil-specific farming, providing information on rapidly evolving agricultural technologies. It addresses assessments of soil variability and application of modern innovations to enhance use efficiency of fertilizers, irrigation, tillage, and pesticides through targeted management of soils and crops.

This book provides the technological basis of adopting and promoting precision agriculture (PA) for addressing the issues of resource scarcity, environmental pollution, and climate change. It focuses specifically on PA technologies and discusses historical evolution, soil variability at different scales, soil fertility and nutrient management, water quality, land leveling techniques, and special ecosystems involving small landholders and coastal regions.

Highlighting the scale-related issues and concerns of small landholders, the text details the efficient use of resources on the basis of soil/field variability and site-specific conditions. It examines how PA technology can increase productivity, enhance profitability, and minimize environmental degradation. Woven throughout is the theme of sustainable use of resources.

Rattan Lal, PhD, is a distinguished university professor of soil science and director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, The Ohio State University, and an adjunct professor of the University of Iceland. His current research focus is on climate-resilient agriculture, soil carbon sequestration, sustainable intensification, enhancing use efficiency of agroecosystems, and sustainable management of soil resources of the tropics. He received honorary degrees of Doctor of Science from Punjab Agricultural University (2001); the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Aas (2005); Alecu Russo Balti State University, Moldova (2010); and the Technical University of Dresden (2015).
He was president of the World Association of the Soil and Water Conservation (1987–1990); the International Soil Tillage Research Organization (1988–1991); the Soil Science Society of America (2005–2007); and is president-elect of the International Union of Soil Science. He was a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change-NCADAC (2010–2013) and is a member of the SERDP Scientific Advisory Board of the US-DOE (2011–present); senior science advisor to the Global Soil Forum of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany (2010–present); member of the Advisory Board of the Joint Program Initiative of Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI) of the European Union (2013–present); and chair of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and Resources of the United Nations University (UNU-FLORES), Dresden, Germany (2014–2017). Professor Lal was a lead author of IPCC (1998–2000). He has mentored 102 graduate students and 54 postdoctoral researchers, and hosted 140 visiting scholars.
He has authored/coauthored 730 refereed journal articles and has written 12 and edited/coedited 58 books. In 2014, Reuter Thomson listed him among the world’s most influential scientific minds.

B.A. Stewart, PhD, is director of the Dryland Agriculture Institute and a distinguished professor of soil science at West Texas A&M University, Canyon, TX. He is a former director of the USDA Conservation and Production Laboratory at Bushland, TX, past president of the Soil Science Society of America, and member of the 1990–1993 Committee on Long-Range Soil and Water Policy, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the Soil Science Society of America, American Society of Agronomy, Soil and Water Conservation Society, a recipient of the USDA Superior Service Award, a recipient of the Hugh Hammond Bennett Award of the Soil and Water Conservation Society, and was an honorary member of the International Union of Soil Sciences in 2008. In 2009, Dr. Stewart was inducted into the USDA Agricultural Research Service Science Hall of Fame. Dr. Stewart is very supportive of education and research on dryland agriculture. The B.A. and Jane Ann Stewart Dryland Agriculture Scholarship Fund was established in West Texas A&M University in 1994 to provide scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students with a demonstrated interest in dryland agriculture.