Global Positioning System for Precise Area Measurement in the Field

GPS can be adopted as a method for referencing geographic & agronomic data in a GIS database. GPS is the first tool to start site specific crop management. Global Positioning System is very useful for the georeferencing and to calculate the area harvested by combine harvester. Use of GPS for surveying of farm with location & size of each field is very important information, for use in commercial purposes. Better positioning in agriculture combined with other spatial information permit significant reductions in fertilizer, pesticides and other environmentally sensitive chemicals. Farm area and/or harvested area by using GPS can be calculated in two ways i.e. track/polygon method and real time method. The error in area measured by GPS and actual ranged from 5.0 to 7.0%. Real time calculation of area during combine harvesting is very important information for yield monitors.