Precision Farming: Introducing Crop Sensors

Crop sensors play an essential role in the Precision Farming DLC for Farming Simulator 22: For optimal and sustainable nitrogen fertilization, you can purchase sensors to measure the actual nitrogen needs of your crops in real-time during the application of the fertilizer. Learn more below!

The Precision Farming Free DLC is a project initiated by John Deere and funded by EIT Food, Europe’s leading Food Innovation Initiative. Co-funded by the EU, it is meant to highlight sustainable technology in agriculture. It releases on April 19th for PC and consoles through ModHub.

• Read here what Precision Farming is
• Find out more about EIT Food

Crop Sensors For Nitrogen Fertilization

Both biomass and nutrient content of crops vary across each field - seasonally, too. To manage the content of nitrogen in your crops, you need to measure it and apply fertilizer accordingly. Using a crop sensor helps you to reach the highest nitrogen score in your overall environmental score. If you don’t use crop sensors, your yield will be lower in some parts of the field. 

Crop sensors and the software running in the background calculate the amount of nitrogen that is needed to release the crop’s full yield potential and display the results on a nitrogen map applied to every field - you can see the map in the menu. Based on that map, all fertilizer spreaders will then automatically apply the correct amount of fertilizer. 

Types of Crop Sensors

Two sensors are available. One is “active”, the ISARIA PRO Active, and one is “passive”, the ISARIA PRO Compact. The active sensor is mounted in front of your tractor. It has a pulsing light source and can be used day and night.

The passive PRO Compact sensor is mounted on cab mirrors and requires daylight to function - you can't use that one at night. After installing the DLC, it will be available at the dealership as a configuration for all tractors.

Sensors can only be used, when the crop has enough green leaves for the sensor to detect differences. For grains, like wheat for example, the best time to use a sensor is  during the mineral fertilizer application in spring. 

More Info On New Features Coming Soon!

See the complete list of features, below. We will share more information about each new feature in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned! 

Precision Farming Features in FS22

• Soil Types*
• Soil Sampling*
• Soil Map Purchase
• Yield Map*
• Environmental Score
• Economic Analysis*
• Crop Sensors
• Variable Rate Seeding/Drilling
• Variable Rate Weed Control
• Variable Rate Manure Fertilizing
• Variable Rate Mineral Fertilizing*
• Variable Rate Mineral Lime Spreading*

* Returning features based on Precision Farming for Farming Simulator 19

Goals and Members of the Collaboration

The EIT Food funded project aims to provide knowledge regarding sustainable farming technology. Implementing Precision Farming in the global video game phenomenon Farming Simulator is one of EITs multiple steps to increase awareness.

Various other partners from the European Union are part of the project: The University of Hohenheim (Germany), the University of Reading (UK), Grupo AN (the largest cereal cooperative in Spain) and the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of Polish Academy of Sciences cooperate to promote the technology.

Downloaded more than one million times, the first version of the Precision Farming DLC for Farming Simulator 19 proved a great success.