Development of a decision support system for mapping variable rate fertilizing application on Soybean (Glycine max) cultivation

Abstract

Precision Farming (PF) has been developed in many countries. It is need an appropriate and integrated technology to achieve the goals, such as global positioning system (GPS) to mark the geographical coordinate, ArcGIS to map the spatial data, Variable-rate Application (VRA) to show the variability of soil properties on the field and Decision Support System (DSS) to establish the best management practices for the field operation. The objective of this research was to develop a decision support system for mapping VRA of precision fertilizing on soybean cultivation. The system generates a VRA map and shows the amount of required fertilizer for soybean according to the field and soil properties data. The DSS was developed using web application to facilitate the flexibility, and scalable access via internet. To execute the application, user requires to select the coordinates of the field and soil sample points and fertilizer dose data. The friendly user of DSS program was successfully produced with the VRA map showed the data of recommendation fertilizer as the decision support system. The outcome from this study was the application mapping VRA. Further steps are needed in order to apply this application to the farmers.