Chilean agri-co-op Cooprinsem has launched a new satellite technology for soil fertility analysis in partnership with technology services provider, Agrosat.
Launcheding the partnership at an industry event in Osorno in the country’s Los Lagos region, Cooprimsem agricultural engineer and soil control expert, Annemarie Mohr, said: “This is a pioneering and robust model that allows us to adequately estimate coverage during different seasons.
“It’s a modern platform and its main advantages are that it eliminates sampling errors, has a rapid response and provides 100% representative information.
“All this and it’s at a lower cost and provides more information and reliability. Although there are similar technologies that work with optical images in the rest of the world, these have problems with cloudiness – but with our technology, measurements are made independent of weather conditions.
“At Cooprinsem, we hope this technology will bring about an up-scaling in periodic soil monitoring and help producers use their equipment more effectively.”
Agrosat’s executive director, Francisco Matte, said there have traditionally been limitations in gathering representative information in the agri sector, so more than a year ago the company met with Cooprinsem and presented them with new devices that would help with day to day agricultural production.
“The co-operative opted to provide its producers with more information on their fields, with a satellite mapping for soil fertility, which determines its nutrition and elements, as well as a dry matter measurement.”
Cooprinsem’s agricultural manager, Luis Silva, said they’ve been able to make the technology available to small farmers who, due to costs, had previously no access to it.
“Today, thanks to this project, we can make accurate soil fertility diagnoses and make better recommendations for correcting deficiencies and increasing productivity. In the future and thanks to the mathematical models we use, we hope to predict the behaviour of the soil in the coming weeks, months and seasons.”
