Life Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating Precision Agricultural Technologies In A Louisiana Cotton Insect Pest Management System, Joshua Heath Temple

LSU Master's Theses

A variable rate pesticide application system was developed and tested during 2001 for an agricultural aircraft in Louisiana. Using technology available to the agricultural aviation industry, a variable rate prescription of insecticide was successfully applied to a cotton field in 2002. These studies compared the efficacy and value of spatially variable insecticide (SVI) applications based on yield maps to the producer standard, whole-field broadcast treatments. Insecticide prescriptions were created from historical yield and production data. Treatments included whole-field broadcast sprays, yield-based SVI sprays, and profit-based SVI sprays. Twenty-two SVI applications were made to test fields from 2002-2005 using two aircraft …