The main goal of the precision farming implementation in irrigation is to increase the efficiency of water, energy and other types of resources, to increase the yield of agricultural crops by maintaining uniform soil moisture for each segment of the irrigated field. The concept of precision farming under irrigation method implementation obliges us to take into account the local soil and climatic, hydrological and organizational-economic conditions of not only the agrolandscape under consideration, but also of each of its segments in particular. To identify and assess the heterogeneity of soil moisture in the irrigated field, the latest technologies of domestic production are used ensuring the reduction of irrigation norms with a general increase in agricultural crops yield. An experiment to determine soil moisture using hyperspectral equipment was carried out with planting potatoes in the limited liability company “Agroprestpriyatie “Bessergenevskoye” of Oktyabrskiy district Rostov region. The measurements were carried out prior to irrigation with soil moisture of 80 % lowest moisture capacity in the 0.4 m layer and immediately after irrigation. The experiment with the application of mobile hyperspectral camera prototype enabled the development of irrigation implementation algorithm and showed that the actual soil moisture content can be taken into account by irrigation and maintaining uniform soil moisture for each segment of the irrigated field with the differentiation of irrigation norm in automatic regime. This will make it possible to apply the concept of precision agriculture in irrigation ensuring the rational use of water, energy and other types of resources together with decrease of intensity of soil degradation processes and increase in crop yields.
Key words: precision irrigation, scientific concept, algorithm, experiment, soil moisture, hyperspectral equipment.
