Laboratory for agricultural decision support systems (LADS)

LADS is a collaborative research platform focused on developing agricultural decision support systems (AgDSSs) for practical precision agriculture. Within LADS, projects are carried out in close collaboration with authorities, industry and farmers.

Vision: research outcomes (knowledge, methods, and data) shall be easily applicable in practical precision agriculture. AgDSSs is an efficient means for that. The ultimate goal is to optimize inputs in crop production to:

•       improve quality of the produce
•       increase nutrient use efficiency
•       reduce risk of negative environmental impact
•       increase economic returns in agricultural production

National and international collaboration

Several decision support systems (or models to be implemented as functions) and geospatial datasets for precision agriculture have been and are being developed through successful collaboration between SLU and different players such as: Lantmännen, Agroväst Livsmedel AB, The Rural Economy and Agricultural Society (Hushållningssällskapet), DataVäxt AB, Swedish Board of Agriculture (including Focus-on-Nutrients – Greppa Näringen), Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU), Region Västra Götaland, Solvi AB and others.

International work have been carried out for example in EU Interreg projects in northern Europe, with Seges Innovation in Denmark, but also in Africa, e.g. in collaboration with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, National Agronomic Institue of Tunisia (INAT) and the National Institute of Field Crops (INGC, Tunisia).

We continuously update Precisionsskolan on Facebook.

Resources

Precisionsskolan

If you want to learn in an easy-to-understand way the theory behind many of the concepts within precision farming, the Precision School (Precisionsskolan) is the right place https://canvas.slu.se/courses/12830 

Open R code

Here is published open R code for internal functionality indecision support systems for precision agriculture. https://github.com/lads-slu

Open Data

Digital Soil Map of Sweden is a publicly available (CC-BY licence) digital map product that provides information on various soil properties in the topsoil (the top 2 dm of the soil layer) of farmland. https://www.slu.se/en/environment/statistics-and-environmental-data/environmental-data-catalogue/digital-soil-map-of-sweden/ 

Projects

LADS is an overarching platform within which a range of projects are carried out in various collaborations and with different funding. Here are a few: 

•       DC-kollen
•       Tools for the agronomic detective
•       Is a quarter of our arable land fertilized blindly
•       JV Smart-Spraying
•       JV N-uptake
•       Baby Grain Passport
•       Target-N
•       Providing Decision support for…..
•       APNI
•       VGR4

For publications please browse individual projects.