Join our 4-H teens as they step into the world of precision agriculture.
What are we learning about today? 
Did you know farmers today can use high-tech tools to grow more food, save money, and even help the environment? It might sound like science fiction, but this is very real and called precision agriculture!
Precision agriculture is about using technology to farm smarter, not harder. It also helps farmers to save resources like water, fertilizer, and pesticides. Farmers use GPS, just like the kind in your car, to see their exact spot in their field and see what the land looks like. They can also use auto steering to plant more precisely.
There are 4 "R"s of precision agriculture:
- Right source
- Right rate
- Right time
- Right place
What do you need?
- Gridded paper – our farm field
- Chalk – our fertilizer spreader
Try it yourself!
Step 1: Simulate old-school farming
- Lay the chalk on its side and drag it across the paper without
lifting it up. - Repeat this until you cover the whole paper. It's okay to overlap.
- Uh-oh! Some areas got too much fertilizer (where the chalk overlapped), and others got very little or none at all!
- This also can be a problem in real farming. Too much fertilizer wastes money if plants don't need it. Too little means crops won't grow well.
- Lay the chalk on its side and drag it across the paper without
- Step 2: Estimate waste
- Look at how many squares got too much fertilizer.
- Look at how many squares got none.
- To see how much money was wasted, you can count the total number of squares, then divide by the number of squares on the page. This calculates the percentage of waste.
Open and print the supply list for yourself!
Learn more here!