ECONOMY AND MECHANIZATION FOR PRECISION FARMING

Module MECHANIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES BY PRECISION FARMING TECHNIQUES

The course aims to provide disciplinary and professionalizing skills to applicate techniques, machines and procedures of the precision farming at farm and territorial scale, in order to limit the environmental impact, working times, resources used and production costs. To provide the knowledge of the instruments and techniques necessary for the field monitoring, including the use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), and to translate the field information in agronomic management mode through properly equipped machines, models and decision support systems. To provide the choice criteria of the machines for the management with reduced environmental impact of the agro-ecosystems in the respect of the natural resources and the territory.

Lectures (28 ore) with the aid of slides and exercises (28 hours) consisting of analyses of practical applications, seminars and visits to local farms.

If the teaching will be carried out in mixed or on line mode, the necessary changes may be introduced with respect to the previous statements in order to comply with the program planned and reported in the syllabus.

Learning assessment could also be carried out online, if conditions require it.

As a guarantee of equal opportunities and in compliance with current laws, interested students can ask for a personal interview in order to plan any compensatory and/or dispensatory measures, based on their specific needs and on teaching objectives of the discipline.

It is also possible to ask the departmental contacts of CInAP (Center for Active and Participatory Integration - Services for Disabilities and/or DSAs), in the persons of professors Giovanna Tropea Garzia and Anna De Angelis.

The meaning of precision agriculture will be explained by referring to its evolution. During the lectures, they will be analysed: farm information systems, remote sensing systems and remote control platforms, including UAS, for crop monitoring, soil and crop survey sensors, agricultural machinery positioning and guiding systems and production mapping systems, variable rate machines for soil tillage, sowing, fertilisation, crop protection. Furthermore, precision farming applications herbaceous in open field and arboreal crops will be analysed.

The lecturer provides all the slides used to explain the arguments of the course, in order to provide a guide for the individual study. The following reference books are also suggested , although students are free to consult any other book about the same topics:

1. Casa R. – Agricoltura di precisione. Metodi e tecnologie per migliorare l'efficienza e la sostenibilità dei sistemi colturali – Edagricole - Edizioni Agricole di New Business Media srl. Milano. (ISBN 978-88-506-5510-6).

2. Misturini R. – Precision farming. Strumenti e tecnologie per un'agricoltura evoluta – Edagricole - Edizioni Agricole di New Business Media srl. Milano. (ISBN: 978-88-506-5587-8).

3. Basso B., Sartori L., Bertocco M. – Agricoltura di precisione. Concetti teorici e applicazioni pratiche –  Edizioni L'Informatore Agrario SpA. Verona. (ISBN 978-88-7220-229-9).

4. Lecture notes.

5. Zhang Q. – Precision farming technology for crop farming – CRC Press - Taylor & Francis Group. Boca Ratom, FL. (ISBN 978-1-4822-5107-4).