Montado is an agro-silvo-pastoral ecosystem characteristic of the south of Portugal and called Dehesa in Spain. Its four fundamental components—soil, pasture, trees, and animals—as well as the climate make Montado a highly complex ecosystem. This review article provides an overview of the state of the art of Montado from the point of view of the agro-silvo-pastoral ecosystem and the scientific work carried out ...
The objective of this study was to determine how application of dolomitic limestone and stocking methods (continuous stocking or deferred stocking) affect the soil compaction, sheep grazing location, height, and nutritional value of pastures when the pasture growth rate is at its maximum. A 4 ha field at Mitra farm—University of Évora—was divided into four plots: P1 and P2—without application of dolomitic limes...
Previous research has shown that the amount of soil spatial variability across a farm and within an agricultural field is of key importance to determine the potential benefits of adopting effective management strategies. Precision agriculture (PA) intends to validate technological tools that capture soil and crop spatial variability, which constitute the basis for the establishment of differentiated management ...
Over the last two decades, a considerable amount of equipment has been acquired (spreaders, seeders, sprayers, among others) to respond to the challenges of Precision Agriculture (PA) concept. Most of this equipment has been purchased at high costs. However, many of them, despite still being functional and equipped with sensors, actuators, and electronic processing units, capable of adjusting to variations in s...
Precision agriculture (PA) intends to validate technological tools that capture soil and crop spatial variability, which constitute the basis for the establishment of differentiated management zones (MZs). Soil apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) sensors are commonly used to survey soil spatial variability. It is essential for surveys to have temporal stability to ensure correct medium- and long-term decisio...
1 Introduction 2 Proximal sensor calibration and validation: evaluating the Grassmaster II probe to estimate pasture productivity 3 Using remote sensing data to identify management zones in olive groves 4 Using remote sensing data to estimate aboveground forest biomass 5 Assessing the carbon footprint of horticultural crops 6 Assessment of animal welfare using the Aurora app 7 Conclusion and future trends 8 Ref...
: Over the last two decades, a considerable amount of equipment has been acquired (spread ers, seeders, sprayers, among others) to respond to the challenges of the precision agriculture (PA) concept. Most of this equipment has been purchased at a high cost. However, many of them, despite still being functional and equipped with sensors, actuators, and electronic processing units capable of adjusting to variatio...
Monitoring the evolution of pasture availability and quality throughout the growing season is the basis of grazing management in extensive Mediterranean livestock systems. Remote sensing (RS) is an innovative tool that, among many other applications, is being developed for detailed spatial and temporal pasture quality assessment. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the potential of satellite images (Sen...
O montado é um ecossistema característico dos países de clima mediterrânico, representando o Alentejo a região de maior expressão em Portugal. É um sistema misto, agro-silvo-pastoril, que suporta a produção pecuária extensiva com baixos encabeçamentos animais. Nas últimas duas décadas a agricultura sofreu um forte impacto tecnológico associado ao conceito de Agricultura de Precisão. Este conceito corresponde a ...
This study evaluates two expedient electronic sensors, a rising plate meter (RPM) and a “Grassmaster II” capacitance probe (GMII), to estimate pasture dry matter (DM, in kg ha−1). The sampling process consisted of sensor measurements, followed by pasture collection and a laboratory reference analysis. In this comparative study, carried out throughout the 2023/2024 pasture growing season, a total of 288 pasture ...