Assistant Professor Taro Mieno Visits the University of Illinois

Taro Mieno spent a week at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, during which he made substantial progress in research working with German, Brittani, and Aolin. Specifically, they have been working on the value of soil sampling, profit-maximizing length of experimental plots, and the economically optimal management zone delineation. He also came up with a future plan on what research topics with PI David Bullock. 

Corn Growers’ Field Lab Gets New Funding

The DIFM project has been awarded $70K over two years to perform additional research on the Illinois Corn Growers’ Field Lab. The primary goal of this body of research is to evaluate a range of remote sensing technologies to enhance research conducted at the Illinois N Field lab. This research would facilitate the development of expertise in image analysis and integration with other field information to better understand crop growth dynamics under different N treatments.  The remote sensing information will be used to not only increase understanding of treatment responses with high spatial and temporal resolution but also to increase the confidence in estimations generated by yield monitors. It will also create preliminary information to be used in the preparation of grant proposals to conduct new studies in the same field.

New Funding Source

Luciano Shiratsuchi and Lisa Fultz approved an internal budget of $70,000 from the Louisiana State University (LSU) to build a Digital Agriculture Laboratory to support DIFM in cloud data processing and storage. The initial plan is to invest in equipment (electrical conductivity machines, on-the-go sensors, drones and workstations) to promote multi-disciplinary work, provide teaching materials, and to start up a Precision Agriculture Program at LSU.