SSMG-14 (D. P. Johansen, D. E. Clay, C. G. Carlson, K. W. Stange, S. A. Clay, and K. Dalsted)

Selecting a DGPS for Making Topography Maps

Summary:

The CEO of your company decides he wants you to start offering precision farming services. Based on this mandate, you purchase a code-phase differentially corrected global positioning system (DGPS), and you use it for grid sampling, applying variable rate fertilizers, and yield monitoring. After a while you notice that your competitor is superimposing soil nutrient, pH, and yield information on topography maps, and is thereby improving his ability to identify management zones (Figure 1). Based on the need to stay competitive, you decide to use your code-phase DGPS system, purchased for locating soil sample grid points, to develop topography maps. After spending $5,000 to attend a geographic information systems (GIS) training workshop for a week, you develop your first topography map (Figure 2). Why doesn’t it look like your competitor’s maps? What went wrong?

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