Current and Future Status of Sensor Technology for Nitrogen Management in Cotton.

Sensors have been used successfully to manage nitrogen in cereal crops like corn and wheat.  However, the indeterminate nature cotton offers a unique nitrogen management situation when compared to these crops.  Researchers have successfully used the Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) from remotely sensed imagery to estimate cotton lint yield.  Others have shown that NDVI measured remotely and with ground based sensors is similar, thus ground based sensors could be used to estimate yield.  Several researchers across the cotton belt are developing algorithms to relate sensor readings to cotton nitrogen needs.  Once the algorithms are developed, application equipment must be set up to successfully apply nitrogen at the desired scale.  This presentation will address the current status of sensor based in-season nitrogen for cotton and the opportunities and challenges for the future.