CitrusYield: A dashboard for mapping yield and fruit quality of citrus in precision agriculture

Abstract

The application of new technologies in precision agriculture offers the possibility to link information to very specific crop locations. The spatial representation of these agricultural data through yield and fruit quality maps allows for crop management in a precise way that means that agricultural operations may be carried out considering intraorchard variability, thus resulting in greater efficiency. The aim of this work was to advance the development of new tools for the generation of yield and quality maps for precision agriculture. A new tool was implemented for citrus through a dashboard called CitrusYield that integrates the requirements demanded by technicians and farmers in terms of spatial distribution and the quality of their citrus production. The data for testing were collected by a prototype of a citrus harvest-assist platform. In order to obtain maps showing heterogeneity of production, an experimental plot with different varieties and variable production was chosen. The maps, tables and graphs showing different crop data were generated automatically by CitrusYield from the analysis of the data collected. The main advantage of knowing the differences in production between the swaths and areas inside the crop is to provide the grower with precise information to make accurate decisions for localised crop management, such as fertilisation, irrigation, pest and disease control, etc.