2021/05/03 - Development of digital tools to assist farmers in nutrient management: first study concluded

In February 2021, the last part of the cooperation project between K+S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH and Spacenus GmbH, a start-up company based in Darmstadt, was initiated. IAPN is responsible for the plant nutrition studies, and they are coordinated and managed by Dr. Paulo Cabrita. The project aims at developing the digital product Agricultural Nutrient Assistant (ANA), designed to support farmers in precision farming, focusing on specific plant nutrients using spring wheat and spring rapeseed as model plants.

ANA is seen as promising tool for optimizing plant nutrient supply to achieve the target yields and thus make efficient use of plant nutrients. To this end, combining non-invasive methods and artificial intelligence (AI) models is seen as having great potentials to assist farmers in planning fertilization and best achieving their goal of nourishing their crops exactly to their demands. After successful completion of the project step that focused on spring wheat, IAPN team has now started a new set of trials in which spring oilseed rape responses to specific nutrient deficiencies are studied by monitoring selected physiological and morphological parameters.