Farming can be tough and the economics of agricultural land management can be difficult to balance against the limited availability of time and financial resources. The decision of whether and how often to apply agricultural chemicals, such as fertilizers or herbicides, can have outsized impacts on the overall profitability of small farms, particularly those operating on marginal lands. Programming efforts that address this issue have advertised and demonstrated the utility of geospatial technology like drones, sensors, and maps to characterize real time conditions in agricultural fields and to help spot any emerging issues. Technical information and hands on demonstrations reach farmers and other interested land managers through presentations and demonstrations by collaborating with adjacent social and learning events.  

Program impacts include new drone imagery collecting projects at select farms and other land areas aimed displaying the usefulness of the drone-based information to inform time sensitive operational decision making. Some participants have purchased new drones for on-farm use and continue to receive assistance utilizing the technology.  Long term, this program effort could yield operations that are more efficient and lead to greater chance of profitability of small farms.

The contributions of partners are critical and include staff across the Kentucky State University Co-operative Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) program areas and the staff in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering (BAE) at University of Kentucky.

Figure 1. Three demensional (3D) digital model of plots at the Harold Benson Research and Demonstration Farm in Franklin County.