Real-time agricultural recommendations using weather sensing on equipment

#A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright or rights whatsoever. © 2015-2019 The Climate Corporation.

#One technical field of the present disclosure is computer-implemented agricultural data processing. Another technical field is computer-implemented collection of real-time localized weather data and use of the weather data in agricultural operations.

#The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

#In the drawings:

#FIG. 1 illustrates an example computer system that is configured to perform the functions described herein, shown in a field environment with other apparatus with which the system may interoperate.

#FIG. 2 illustrates two views of an example logical organization of sets of instructions in main memory when an example mobile application is loaded for execution.

#In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. It will be apparent, however, that embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure. Embodiments are disclosed in sections according to the following outline: 1. GENERAL OVERVIEW 2. EXAMPLE AGRICULTURAL INTELLIGENCE COMPUTER SYSTEM 2.1. STRUCTURAL OVERVIEW 2.2. APPLICATION PROGRAM OVERVIEW 2.3. DATA INGEST TO THE COMPUTER SYSTEM 2.4. PROCESS OVERVIEW—AGRONOMIC MODEL TRAINING 2.5. IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLE—HARDWARE OVERVIEW 3. EXAMPLE SYSTEMS FOR INTEGRATION OF LOCAL REAL-TIME WEATHER DATA IN AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS 3.1 EXAMPLE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE CONFIGURATIONS 3.2 EXAMPLE OPERATOR DISPLAY UPDATES 3.3 AUTOMATICALLY MONITORING EFFECTIVENESS OF OPERATIONS 3.4 AUTOMATED CREATION OF FIELD BUFFER ZONES 3.5 AUTOMATED GENERATION OF REGULATORY REPORTS 3.6 AUTOMATED DRIFT MANAGEMENT 4. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 5. BENEFITS OF CERTAIN EMBODIMENTS

#In an embodiment, agricultural apparatus operable in agricultural fields comprises one or more digital electronic weather stations affixed to the apparatus and optionally one or more GPS receivers and/or proximity sensors, each coupled to a mobile computing device such as a cab computer. The weather stations transmit data representing wind speed, temperature and/or other weather parameters, as measured on the apparatus, to the mobile computing device. Under control of program logic, the mobile computing device continuously compares real-time, then-current weather data received from the weather stations to programmed or configured threshold values relating to a current agricultural operation. If the weather data indicates weather conditions that exceed one of the thresholds, a warning message may be generated at the mobile computing device to prompt the operator to confirm whether to continue the operation. Post-operation wind maps support assessment of the effectiveness of the operation. Other embodiments can provide continuous monitoring of spray effectiveness, automated creation of field buffer zones to prevent application of products under conditions that will adversely affect adjacent crops or fields, automated generation of regulatory reports and automatic drift management.

#FIG. 1 illustrates an example computer system that is configured to perform the functions described herein, shown in a field environment with other apparatus with which the system may interoperate. In one embodiment, a user 102 owns, operates or possesses a field manager computing device 104 in a field location or associated with a field location such as a field intended for agricultural activities or a management location for one or more agricultural fields. The field manager computer device 104 is programmed or configured to provide field data 106 to an agricultural intelligence computer system 130 via one or more networks 109.