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A Test Program to Assess VRT Granular Fertilizer Applications for Citrus

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Paper number  031126,  2003 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.15021) @2003
Authors:   William M. Miller, J. D. Whitney
Keywords:   GIS, GPS, real-time control, sensors, spreaders

While granular fertilizer spreading has been a common practice in citrus operations for decades, the implementation of VRT (variable-rate technology) controlled spreaders is relatively new. Effectively, there has been no research undertaken to validate VRT spreader performance in tree crop applications. Both real-time sensing (ultrasonic, laser, photoelectric) of tree canopy and GPS-based site-specific control systems have been developed and are available commercially. The goal of this project was to measure the dynamic performance of several VRT fertilizer spreaders, in order to measure accuracy of various systems and compare their control performance. A test procedure using ASAE S341.3 and a field-testing facility were developed to generate twodimensional dynamic performance information.

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