Heying Tao ’07 Ph.D. He has pursued his interest in agriculture on two continents. He studied first at China Agricultural University, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and then at UConn, where he received his PhD. in soil science. These days, you can find her in her office in the WB Young Building, if she is not working at the Research and Education Farm or private farm near Agronomy Road.
Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool, or FRST (pronounced “first”). FRST is an online national soil fertility database funded and hosted by the USDA. When completed, it will include past and present soil testing data from researchers across the United States, including phosphorus and potassium levels, location, soil type, fertilizer trends, and yield results for specific crops.
As an assistant professor of soil nutrient management and soil health in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, Tao teaches agriculture students questions and methods that turn problems into solutions for farmers at all levels. His research helps advance academic agricultural knowledge into real-world applications for the farmers who feed the nation.
Providing development assistance at the grassroots level
There’s a reason the central part of the country is often referred to as “America’s breadbasket” – the ideal landscape for a farmer is vast, open, and flat.
These conditions are not always met in more coastal agricultural lands, which may include sections of varying soil composition, quality and slope. Fortunately, precision agriculture technologies can enable farmers to optimize their fertilizer application across the farm.
Precision agriculture divides a field into distinct sections using a grid system, taking into account variables such as topography, climate, management practices, and soil properties. This essentially creates a paint-by-numbers guide for smart farm devices, which can use this map to control how much fertilizer is applied to each square.
In precise experiments on the farm, Tao uses this and other modeling methods to help farmers test the success of different fertilizer application rates so they can develop the most efficient fertilizer strategy for their entire field.
Tao’s ultimate goal with this research is to develop software that can easily create these strategies for farmers. The envisioned program would allow farmers to “simply input their field information into the app or software, and then the software will bring up a variable rate recommendation map,” Tao says.
From there, farmers will upload the map to their existing sensing and smart fertilizer devices “and then simply drive up and apply their fertilizers at the right rate and in the right place.”
Updating guidance for the new generation of farmers
With FRST, Tao is helping to bring national crop Fertilization Guidelines in 21scheduled tribe century,
Tao says, “If you look at the current recommendations, they’re all based on very old research trials — the last such nationwide survey was in 1998. But now, our climate is different, our soil characteristics are different, our (crop ) ) The varieties are different, our management practices are different. The whole system is somewhat different from 20 years ago.
Tao is particularly interested in fine-tuning recommendations for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium application – three essential nutrients that are replenished by fertilizing the soil – and providing new data to FRST.
“We call them essential nutrients because without them, crops would not be able to complete their life cycle – and they cannot be replaced by any other element,” she explains. “Therefore, if crops are deficient in these nutrients, the yield and quality will be compromised. But how much is needed, and how much farmers should apply for, is based on recommendations from land-grant universities.
Generating these fertilizer recommendations will not only help farmers achieve greater crop yields, but will also help them reduce costs and improve soil health, by ensuring that they are getting the right amount of fertilizer in any given year. Apply only as much fertilizer as the crops require – no more, no less.
According to research from UConn’s Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy, guidance and support from land-grant universities like UConn has become similar More important In recent years, climate change, state regulations, and difficult economic conditions have continued to pose challenges to domestic farmers. And, since Connecticut farms provide approximately 22,000 jobs (Last official count, which was in 2017) More accounts 8% of food purchases by state residentsThe entire state benefits from the protection of these farms.
While she conducts her micro-field experiments, Tao is happy to know that she is giving farmers one less thing to worry about as they look to a changing future.
“The goal is to improve the accuracy and precision of nutrient recommendations so we can help growers adapt to extreme weather events and build resilience for climate-smart agricultural production systems,” she says.
