What is OptRx?
What are OptRx® Crop Sensors?
OptRx Crop Sensors measure and record data about crop health in real-time using the reflectance of light emitted on the growing plants. The OptRx system then determines the vigor of the crop (Vegetative Index).
Sensors obtain readings of crop conditions in a field and compares high crop vigor plants to the rest of the field. OptRx uses two crop vigor algorithms, NDVI (for small crops such as early growth wheat) and NDRE (for large crops such as corn and late growth wheat)
What problems do OptRx Crop Sensors address?
- Challenges associated with weather and soil matter variability
- Target nitrogen investment directly by applying higher rates in areas that will respond favorably to more nitrogen and reducing rates in areas that are nitrogen rich.
- In manure applied fields, account for the variability of nitrogen caused by fluctuating concentrations of nitrogen within manure, as well as the limitations associated with manure spreading equipment.
- OptRx provides a proven variable rate nitrogen prescription every year. No per-acre service fees
When do you apply nitrogen? Did you know these facts about nitrogen management?
- As a general rule of thumb, every percent of organic matter has the capability of mineralizing to form 30 pounds of crop available N throughout the growing season. If there is a 2% variability of organic matter in a field, there could be 60+ lbs of N variability due to organic matter alone.
- De-nitri¬fication can reduce nitrogen available to the crop by 2-5% per day when soil is saturated after initial two days.
- Corn accumulates only 1 lb N/acre by the four-leaf (V4) stage but the following 6 weeks it accumulates 60-70% of its total seasonal uptake. During this period of high demand, some areas have an adequate supply of nitrogen to ¬finish out the growing season strong while other areas could maximize growing potential by using more.
- University and OEM trials show an average of $20-$30 more per acre by side-dressing corn. In addition, OptRx crop sensors can make $20-$30 per acre over a flat-rate side-dress application. That’s a $40-$60 per acre improvement over a single pass nitrogen application.
Continued reading and studies
- Corn & Soybean Digest
- Beck’s Hybrids (control + F: 276) Study begins on page 276.
- University of Illinois
- Newswise
- University of Missouri