Testing components toward a remote-sensing-based decision support system for cotton production

American cotton producers face rising production costs, falling prices, min imal yield increases, and increased competition from overseas markets and a rtificial fibers. Many producers are looking toward technology to gain an a dvantage in the only two variables that are within their control: reducing production costs and increasing yield. ITD-Spectral Visions and the NASA Co mmercial Remote Sensing Program are working with cotton producers Kenneth H ood of Perthshire Farms, Mississippi and lay Hardwick of Newellton, Louisia na to test remote sensing and precision-agriculture technologies to solve s ome of these problems, with the eventual goal of integrating successful tec hniques into a Decision Support System (DSS) for cotton production. Compone nts of the envisioned DSS currently being tested through field experiments include variable-rate seeding, spatially variable insecticide, spatially va riable plant-growth regulator, variable-rate nitrogen, and others. The obje ctive of these tests is to reduce costs and/or increase yield in an economi cally feasible manner. The eventual goal-integration of these and other com ponents into a DSS-may occur only after the components are field-tested to show positive and repeatable results that justify the costs of such a syste m.