Adapting Precision Technology on Row Crops vs. Specialty Crops

The results from two surveys carried out in Florida, 2019, and Missouri, 2021 were used to investigate whether the crop types had an impact of the willingness to utilize technology on the farms. The surveys focused on the status of using Precision Agriculture (PA) in both states, including PA practices, equipment and software, Internet and e-mail use, information sources for PA, satisfaction level from service, providers, data handling, interpretation, storage, and ownership, the value of data for decision making, changes in management practices, desired information and services, and the next planned step in the practice of PA. The survey results showed more similarities in the main reason NOT to use PA between the two crop types but the present application of using technology in specialty crops is generally five times larger than in row crops. GPS receiver applications were reported similar for both types of crops. Lack of knowledge and high cost of data handling were cited as the main problems. The most significant difference was among using variable rate technology which was 43% for specialty crops while was reported 0% for row crops. Pest scouting and mapping were commonly used for specialty crops while they were rarely applied for row crops. Survey respondents found yield mapping, soil sampling map and irrigation scheduling were more valuable for specialty crops than row crops in management decisions. About 50% of the respondents would like to share the PA data in both types of crops. Almost 50 % of respondents got their PA information from retailers in both categories and as the second source, using extension agents were more common in specialty crops that row crops.