1. What are application maps?
2. How are the zones calculated?

What are application maps?

Once you add a field, you can use SKYFLD® to create maps that will help you improve your results when you plant or fertilise your crops. In other words, application maps are used to effectively “apply” substances or seeds to your fields.

There are three types of application maps available in SKYFLD®:

• seeding maps
• fertilisation maps
• crop protection maps.

Each type of application map is created based on data from the base maps. You can choose biomass maps and upload soil and yield maps as data sources. For each application map, you can select 10 different base maps and prioritize them. Next, SKYFLD adjusts the pixels of the application map to the working width of the machine you use. Additionally, you can set up tramline orientation. You can also repaint chosen areas of maps manually. As the last step, you can export the map to your terminal or download it as a pdf file. With SKYFLD, precision farming is easy and takes no time!

How are the zones calculated?

The zones of application maps are created through a multi-step process. You select base maps, which serve as a basis for further calculations we run in the background.

Step 1: First, we calculate the average vitality for each pixel of the map.

Biomass maps vitality ranges from 0.0 to 1.0. In SKYFLD, instead of numbers, you see colors from red to green representing different values.

If you use soil or yield maps as a basis, we convert the values from your maps to match the 0.0 to 1.0 range. The minimum value from the soil/yield map is represented by 0, and the maximum equals 1.0.

Having all pixels of all your base maps converted to the same unit, we run the calculation.

Step 2: By default, all base maps have the same weight. It means they contribute to the final application map creation equally.

You can change the maps’ priority by manipulating the % value. The total value must add up to 100%.

We multiply each pixel's average vitality (calculated in step 1) by the weight assigned to the map. Weight is a value between 0.0 - 1.0 that represents % you set while setting map priority.

• 0.0 means 0% of information from the base map should be included in the application map creation
• 1.0 means 100% of information from the base map should be included in the application map creation

If you change the priority, the values from 0.0 to 1.0 will differ accordingly. 

Example: if you selected 3 biomass maps and set their weight to 50%, 25%, 25%, each pixel of each map will be multiplied by accordingly 0.50, 0.25, 0.25.

The vitality value for a pixel will be reflected in the map preview and further calculations.

Using the split screen mode, you see that zones of application maps reflect vitality zones. The example below shows that Zone 1 reflects the lowest vitality, and Zone 9 overlaps with the highest vitality.

Step 4: Your application map is adjusted to the number of zones you select: 3, 5, 7, or 9. The zones are created based on the average vitality of each pixel. 

Each zone represents a range of vitality values. For example, for 5 zones, the application map will reflect 5 vitality ranges.

Step 5: You can change tramline orientation to match a machine's direction on a field. We use the rotation information you set in degrees to transform the map accordingly and adjust pixels to the path of your machinery.

Step 6: The map is adjusted to the working width of your machinery. Depending on the machine you select, we ensure that each pixel is big enough so that the machine can cover each one of them while applying the product/seeds.