Robin Gebbers

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Verified

Robin verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Senior Researcher at Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy

Precision agriculture comprises a set of technologies that combines sensors, information systems, enhanced machinery, and informed management to optimize production by accounting for variability and uncertainties within agricultural systems. Adapting production inputs site-specifically within a field and individually for each animal allows better u...

Digital soil mapping (DSM) relies on a broad pool of statistical methods, yet determining the optimal method for a given context remains challenging and contentious. Benchmarking studies on multiple datasets are needed to reveal strengths and limitations of commonly used methods. Existing DSM studies usually rely on a single dataset with restricted...

Digital soil mapping (DSM) relies on a broad pool of statistical methods, yet determining the optimal method for a given context remains challenging and contentious. Benchmarking studies on multiple datasets are needed to reveal strengths and limitations of commonly used methods. Existing DSM studies usually rely on a single dataset with restricted...

A rapid, accurate and high-resolution characterization of soil properties is essential for a successful implementation of site-specific soil and crop management in precision agriculture. In recent years, proximal soil sensors have been developed as efficient tools for high-resolution soil mapping. Nevertheless, no single soil sensor is capable of a...

Soil sensing enables rapid and cost-effective soil analysis. However, a single sensor often does not generate enough information to reliably predict a wide range of soil properties. Within a case-study, our objective was to identify how many and which combinations of soil sensors prove to be suitable for high-resolution soil mapping. On a subplot o...

This paper introduces a model-agnostic approach designed to enhance uncertainty estimation in the predictive modeling of soil properties, a crucial factor for advancing pedometrics and the practice of digital soil mapping. For addressing the typical challenge of data scarcity in soil studies, we present an improved technique for uncertainty estimat...

Detailed description of technologies and algorithms for site-specific liming.

17 Soil sensing enables rapid and cost-effective soil analysis. However, a single sensor often does not 18 generate enough information to reliably predict a wide range of soil properties. Within a case-study, our 19 objective was to identify how many and which combinations of soil sensors prove to be suitable for 20 high-resolution soil mapping. On...

In situ soil pH measurements with ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) are receiving increasing attention in soil mapping for precision agriculture as they can avoid time-consuming sampling and off-site laboratory work. However, unlike the standard laboratory protocol, in situ pH measurements are carried out at lower and varying soil moisture contents (...

Site-specific estimation of lime requirement requires high-resolution maps of soil organic carbon (SOC), clay and pH. These maps can be generated with digital soil mapping models fitted on covariates observed by proximal soil sensors. However, the quality of the derived maps depends on the applied methodology. We assessed the effects of (i) trainin...

Proper application of a fertilizer requires precise knowledge of its nutrient composition. In the case of liquid organic manures (LOM), this information is often lacking due to heterogeneous nature of these fertilizers. Published “book values” of nutrient contents present the average from a wide range of possible nutrient characteristics, but usual...

Liming is an effective measure to increase the soil pH and to counterbalance soil acidification. Therefore, the liming recommendations (LRs) for agricultural practice consider two aspects: changing the initial pH to the desired pH and compensating for all pH decreases taking place within the liming interval. The separation of these aspects is essen...

In agriculture, overfertilization with liquid organic manures (LOM) is causing environmental issues including eutrophication of non-agricultural ecosystems and nitrate pollution of groundwater. To avoid such problems, a precise and demand-oriented fertilization with LOM is needed. This can only be achieved if the nutrient composition of the LOM is...

In situ soil pH measurements with ion-selective electrodes (ISE) receive increasing attention in soil mapping for precision agriculture, as they can avoid time consuming sampling and off-site laboratory work. However, unlike the standard laboratory protocol, in situ pH measurements are carried out at lower and varying soil moisture content (SMC), w...

The use of visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy as an alternative to the conventional laboratory analysis methods, has become more popular for soil characterization in recent years. Advantages of this technique includes rapid, non-destructive and cost-effective sensing, requirement for minimal or no sample preparation and no sample trea...

A rapid, accurate and high-resolution assessment of soil properties is essential for managing soil fertility through locally adapted tillage, fertilizer and pesticide application in precision agriculture. Soil mapping using proximal soil sensors is a time- and cost-efficient alternative to standard sampling and laboratory analyses. However, because...

Detailed knowledge of a soil’s lime requirement (LR) is a prerequisite for a demand-based lime fertilization to achieve the optimum soil pH and thus sustainably increasing soil fertility and crop yields. LR can be directly determined by the base neutralizing capacity (BNC) obtained by soil-base titration. For a site-specific soil acidity management...

Nutrient concentrations in livestock manures and biogas digestates show a huge variability due to disparities in animal husbandry systems concerning animal species, feed composition, etc. Therefore, a nutrient estimation based on recommendation tables is not reliable when the exact chemical composition is needed. The alternative, to analyse represe...

Liming agricultural fields is necessary for counteracting soil acidity and is one of the oldest operations in soil fertility management. However, the best management practice for liming in Germany only insufficiently considers within-field soil variability. Thus, a site-specific variable rate liming strategy was developed and tested on nine agricul...

Content NIR Sensors Challenges and potential of NIR sensors to simplify the generation of nitrogen flow balances – Digital mapping of nitrogen cycles ..... 1 On Farm Validation of different NIR Sensors for Manure Sensing ..... 9 Combine Harvester Analysis of Combine Harvester Threshing Systems Across Different Climate Regions ..... 17 An interactiv...

Knowing the exact nutrient composition of organic fertilizers is a prerequisite for their appropriate application to improve yield and to avoid environmental pollution by over-fertilization. Traditional standard chemical analysis is cost and time-consuming and thus it is unsuitable for a rapid analysis before manure application. As a possible alter...

Una alternativa al uso de inseticidas sintéticos en el control de especies importantes de moscas de la fruta (Tephritidae) es la técnica del insecto estéril (TIE). La TIE se basa en liberaciones masivas de machos estériles (sometidos a radiación) para controlar una población de plagas. Para especies de importancia como Rhagoletis pomonella, Bractoc...

Soil acidification is caused by natural paedogenetic processes and anthropogenic impacts but can be counteracted by regular lime application. Although sensors and applicators for variable-rate liming (VRL) exist, there are no established strategies for using these tools or helping to implement VRL in practice. Therefore, this study aimed to provide...

Flower thinning compromises the continuous yield and fruit quality in the production of apple fruit. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential of managing spatial heterogeneity in flower set by adapted tree-individual mechanical flower thinning. In the years 2011, 2014–2016, commercial orchards of ‘Elstar’/M26 and ‘Gala’/M9 trai...

Analyzing soils using conventional methods is often time consuming and costly due to their complexity. These methods require soil sampling (e.g., by augering), pretreatment of samples (e.g., sieving, extraction), and wet chemical analysis in the laboratory. Researchers are seeking alternative sensor-based methods that can provide immediate results...

Despite being a natural soil-forming process, soil acidification is a major agronomic challenge under humid climate conditions, as soil acidity influences several yield-relevant soil properties. It can be counterbalanced by the regular application of agricultural lime to maintain or re-establish soil fertility and to optimize plant growth and yield...

The study aims at spatial analysis of water deficit of fruit trees under semi-humid climate conditions. Differences of soil, root, and their relation with the spatial variability of crop evapotranspiration (ETa) were analyzed. Measurements took place in a six hectare apple orchard (Malus x domestica ‘Gala’) located in fruit production area of Brand...

The effect of the intensity of mechanical thinning on fruit drop and final fruit set was investigated in the years 2011 and 2014 on apple trees with varying flower set considering the cultivars ‘Elstar’, ‘Gala’ and ‘Pinova’. Thinning was carried out with the device Darwin 250 at balloon stage (BBCH 59) at constant vehicle speed of 8 km h‑1 with rot...

Agricultural management is a key force affecting soil processes and functions. Triggered by biophysical constraints as well as rapid structural and technological developments, new management practices are emerging with largely unknown impacts on soil processes and functions. This impedes assessments of the potential of such emerging practices for s...

Precision agriculture (PA) strongly relies on spatially differentiated sensor information. Handheld instruments based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) are a promising sensor technique for the in-field determination of various soil parameters. In this work, the potential of handheld LIBS for the determination of the total mass fraction...

The lack of soil data, which are relevant, reliable, affordable, immediately available, and sufficiently detailed, is still a significant challenge in precision agriculture. A promising technology for the spatial assessment of the distribution of chemical elements within fields, without sample preparation is laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LI...

On a grassland field with sandy soils in Northeast Germany (Brandenburg), vegetation indices from multi-spectral UAV-based remote sensing were used to predict grassland biomass productivity. These data were combined with soil pH value and apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) from on-the-go proximal sensing serving as indicators for soil-borne cau...

Mid‐infrared spectroscopy (MIRS) has proven to be a cost‐effective, high throughput measurement technique for soil analysis. After multivariate calibration mid‐infrared spectra can be used to predict various soil properties, some of which are related to lime requirement (LR). The objective of this study was to test the performance of MIRS for recom...

The article provides information about the practical implementation site specific soil acidity management in Germany. It covers the steps from data collection by proximal soil sensors, data conversion into meaningful soil parameters and derivation of lime requirement maps based on traditional and refined algorithms. Site specific soil acidity manag...

Agriculture contributes the strongest to the nitrogen (N) enrichment of ecosystems. It is therefore important to know the spatial distribution of factors influencing N losses or to know the distribution of soil nitrate itself. One resource-extensive method to capture nitrate variability is the use of sensors. The present study examines the within-f...

This paper shows the first results of the EU-funded research project ‘pH-BB: Precision liming in Brandenburg’. The project aims to develop innovative solutions to adapt the current practice of pH management to the demands of a modern, resource-efficient and yield-optimized agricultural production. In the project, proximal soil sensors are used to r...

The benefits of process-oriented modelling for management recommendations at the field scale are constrained by high spatial variability of soil properties and lack of dense information on soil types, variability and patterns. Geo-electrical mapping provides dense information about the soil, but sensor output is influenced by several factors. The a...

In this research, winter wheat Nitrogen and water status assessment by a digital camera was studied. Field experiments were conducted during growing seasons, 2012, 2013 and 2014 in Potsdam, Germany. Different treatments of N fertilization and water regimes were applied to the plant. Aboveground biomass was sampled three times during each season, an...

A four-year (1999-2002) multivariable data set for one specific agricultural used field located in North Rhine-Westphalia is documented in detailed. The data set focusses on the small-scale heterogeneity of soil properties varying in the spatial and temporal dimension. Initial soil sampling was conducted at altogether 80 sampling points arranged in...

A four-year (1999-2002) multivariable dataset for one specific cropland field located in North Rhine-Westphalia is documented in detail. The dataset focusses on the small-scale heterogeneity of soil properties varying in the spatial and temporal dimension. Initial soil sampling was conducted at altogether 80 sampling points arranged in a regular an...

Spatially resolved soil parameters are some of the most important pieces of information for precision agriculture. These parameters, especially the particle size distribution (texture), are costly to measure by conventional laboratory methods, and thus, in situ assessment has become the focus of a new discipline called proximal soil sensing. Terahe...

High spatial variability of soil properties restricts the benefits of process-oriented modelling for management recommendations on field scale due to rare information about the soil inventory and its distribution. Geo-electrical mapping provides with a certain spatial pattern, but results are influenced by various factors. The model HERMES was appl...

In orchards, the variations of fruit quality and its determinants are crucial for resource effective measures. In the present study, a drip-irrigated plum production (Prunus domestica L. “Tophit plus”/Wavit) located in a semi-humid climate was studied. Analysis of the apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) of soil showed spatial patterns of sand le...

Im Land Brandenburg ist nur auf 26 % der Ackerflächen der Boden-pH-Wert im optimalen Bereich [ZE12]. Entsprechend kann es auf 74 % der Flächen durch suboptimale pH-Werte zu Verschlechterungen der Bodenfruchtbarkeit und damit zu Ertragsminderungen kommen. Ein gezieltes pH-Management durch Kalkdüngung kann dem entgegenwirken. Das Projekt pH-BB „Präz...

Background: Earthworms are important for maintaining soil ecosystem functioning and serve as indicators of soil fertility. However, detection of earthworms is time-consuming, which hinders the assessment of earthworm abundances with high sampling density over entire fields. Recent developments of mobile terrestrial sensor platforms for proximal so...

Soil organic carbon (SOC) and clay content (CC). This file contains averaged data of the SOC and CC data. Samples for SOC were taken in 1996, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008 at the measurement plots and analyzed for total carbon after dry combustion at 1250°C using a CNS-2000 analyzer (LECO, Ltd., Mönchengladbach, Germany). Carbonate carbon was determin...

PSS data and earthworm abundances. This file contains the PSS data as interpolated onto the measurement plots, the total sums of the earthworm abundances observed between 1997 and 2007, and the coordinates of the plot locations. (CSV)

Correlation (Pearson) between PSS data and soil parameters. Soil parameters were determined during the long-term earthworm field experiment as described under S2 File. (DOCX)

Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand der terrestrischen mobilen Pflanzen-und Bodensensoren für Precision Agriculture. Am Beispiel der Erfassung von Bodenparametern wird dargestellt wieweit Sensordatenfusion vorangekommen ist und welche weiteren Schritte auf dem Weg zum Smart Farming noch folgen müssen.

Smart Farming Egal ob Parkassistent oder intelligente Küchenmaschine – in unserem Alltag sind die smarten Assistenzsysteme längst angekommen. Vor allem im Zuge von Industrie 4.0 gewinnen sie auch in der Agrarwirtschaft immer mehr an Bedeutung. Sie übernehmen unangenehme und beschwerliche Aufgaben und erleichtern so das Arbeiten in der Landwirtschaf...

Soil macrofauna plays major roles in ecosystem functioning; its ecological effects, however, are influenced by its spatial distribution. Information about macrofauna distribution pattern is scarce especially at regional scales. The limited studies available suggest a considerable influence of soil properties on macrofauna distribution. Therefore, t...

A combined spatial-aspatial clustering approach for partitioning tree-based data in orchards was developed. The method employs the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic applied to the analysis of individual tree data in a grapefruit orchard located near the city of Adana, Turkey. Analyzed tree-variables included yield (total fruit weight per tree) and two possib...

Comparison of geoelectrical methods for soil mapping

Depth sounding with the EM38: detection of soil layering by inversion of apparent electrical conductivity measurements.

In this study, 1 full irrigation regime (100% of crop evapotranspiration, I100) and 2 deficit irrigation regimes (70%, I70, and 50%, I50) were evaluated in a Rio Red grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macfad. ‘Rio Red’) orchard in Adana, Turkey. Fruit yield, leaf water potential (LWP), and soil water depletion (SWD) were measured among trees from each tre...

Keynote: Review of crop and soil sensing in precision agriculture

Proximal sensing of soil electromagnetic properties is widely used to map spatial land heterogeneity. The mapping instruments use galvanic contact, capacitive coupling or electromagnetic induction. Regardless of the type of instrument, the geometrical configuration between signal transmitting and receiving elements typically defines the shape of th...

In this study, full (100% of crop evapotranspiration, I-100) and two deficit irrigation regimes (75%, I-75,and 50%, I-50) were evaluated in a ‘RioRed’ grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macfad. var. ‘Rio Red’) orchard in Adana Turkey. Fruit yield, leaf water potential and soil water depletion were measured on trees from each treatment. Actual evapotranspi...

Different approaches of non-destructive estimation of the LAI in winter wheat were compared. Plant height had weak relation with the LAI, while estimated biomass showed high logarithmic relationship (R 2 =0.839). NDRE and REIP were logarithmically well related to the LAI (R 2 =0.726 and 0.779 respectively). Saturation effect of NDRE and REIP was le...

Diffuse reflectance of soils in the near-infrared reflectance (NIR) has been related to many chemical soil properties. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy may become a part of proximal soil sensing and contribute to bridge the gap of knowledge imposed by the inability of conventional methods to resolve the spatial patterns of soil fertility at field s...

This paper presents technical details about georeferenced orthophoto generation for precision agriculture with a dedicated selfconstructed camera system and a commercial micro UAV as carrier platform. The paper describes the camera system (VIS + NIR) in detail and focusses on three issues concerning the generation and processing of the aerial image...

Keynote: Precision Agriculture Perspectives

Readings of optical crop sensors used for site-specific nitrogen management can be affected by both nitrogen and water supply of the crop. This may lead to wrong decisions in the on-line application of nitrogen. A winter wheat experiment was designed including nitrogen fertilization and irrigation as two factors. Results confirmed the influence of...

Soil is a scarce resource which requires due attention. Developing soil sensors with the possibility of continuous online measurement is a major challenge in soil science. Terahertz (THz) electromagnetic radiation may provide the opportunity for the measurement of organic material density, water content and other soil parameters at different soil d...

Apples show biennial fluctuations in yields (alternate bearing). The alternate bearing cycle can be broken by reducing excessive flowers using either chemical or mechanical means. Currently, automatic thinning systems are treating the trees uniformly despite the fact that neighbouring trees can have a very different numbers of flowers resulting in...

Mapping of phosphorus (P) is based on sampling and laboratory analysis. Although laboratory analysis is costly, the number of samples is restricted in practice. In zone sampling, areas of the field are used to composite samples from sets of sampling points to reduce efforts. This study introduces area-to-point (ATP) kriging for downscaling composit...