A NEW initiative hopes to help arable farmers and landowners in the UK make a more affordable entry into precision farming.

Cranfield University, as part of a collaborative project with AgSpace Agriculture, hopes to use a budget of near £750,000 from Innovate UK, together with income from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), to produce a 'precision soil map.'

It will take high resolution satellite data – pioneered by AgSpace – processed using a soil brightness algorithm to show where soil quality variation exists in fields. This will be analysed by experts from Cranfield and modelled alongside Britain’s comprehensive soil datasets to produce a new map.

This should present an economically viable alternative to the current labour intensive method of field soil surveys, with growers able to increase yields with lower input costs and reduced environmental impact.

It draws on Cranfield’s long-standing experience in national scale datasets. As well as AgSpace Agriculture, its partners in the two-year project, are the Agri-EPI Centre (a new UK centre of agricultural innovation); the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen; and Courtyard Agriculture (trading as IPF).