Course Information

Precision Agriculture and Digital Field Technology introduce students to the principles, tools, and applied workflows used to measure, interpret, and manage within-field variability in modern crop production. Students learn how precision agriculture supports better decisions through the 4R framework: Right input, Right rate, Right time, and Right place. The course emphasizes the complete digital agriculture decision cycle: observe, measure, map, analyze, prescribe, apply, verify, and improve. Students work with field boundaries, yield data, soil data, elevation layers, EC/EMI concepts, satellite imagery, vegetation indices, GNSS guidance, AB lines, management zones, variable-rate recommendations, sprayer/nozzle calculations, and basic return-on-investment analysis. By the end of the course, students produce an applied one-field precision agriculture implementation portfolio that includes a base map, interpreted data layers, management zones, a variable-rate recommendation, an operator-ready map package, a QA checklist, an ROI/sustainability memo, and a short client-facing presentation.