innovate arkansas

Dr. Dennis Gardisser rented a car in Los Angeles, attached a GPS unit to the window and drove 20 miles to downtown where he navigated streets he had never seen to arrive at his hotel. "We hardly missed a turn in two days," he recalled.

That's only one of six units the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture engineer owns and uses regularly. What was once an exclusively military technology has had an impact on many areas of daily life.

"We can record many layers of information about a specific spot on the earth and then put all the layers together to allow us to make better management decisions in agriculture, community development and energy development," says Gardisser.

GPS (Global Positioning Systems) location data is mapped using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) software to display location of assets or other items of interest. It's a tool for hunters, fishermen and people who want to track their exercise performance. Community developers are using GPS and GIS to locate community infrastructure, from manholes to traffic signs. It can also provide statistical information such as crime rates in areas.

Gardisser says geospatial technology is helping farmers create yield maps of their fields, which allows them to pinpoint trouble spots and be more precise with fertilizer and pesticide. It also saves input costs and time.

The technology has also eliminated the need for flagmen to show crop pilots where to apply chemicals. "It was dangerous work for the flagman," says Gardisser. "Now, a pilot working alone can be more precise and efficient in applying chemicals."

The Division of Agriculture has made a sizable commitment to this technology, says Gardisser. He has hired an engineer to specialize in GPS technology and train the public how to use it and apply it to their specific needs.

The new engineer, Dr. Dharmendra Saraswat, has tackled several projects, including one with Dr. Samy Sadaka, an energy engineer, to catalogue alternative fuel resources and routes to move those resources. This can help industry decide where to locate processing facilities for the resources.

Saraswat says he'll conduct research and train users in applying GPS, GIS and other newer technologies to address environmental, agricultural and community issues. He has been showing farmers how to use the technology to better manage their operations.

"My immediate focus is to help users with the practical applications of the vast amount of data that has been generated for the U of A's Center for Advanced Spatial Technology," Saraswat says. The center, led by Dr. Fred Limp, a nationally recognized leader in this technology, has a grant from NASA to promote education for users of satellite and remote sensing information.

Saraswat says the information generated by the center and state and federal agencies can help people make better management decisions on issues important to all Arkansans such as nutrient management, air and water quality, carbon credits, biofuels and agriculture. The information can show forest, crop, road and stream locations and help a searcher learn, for instance, what's causing runoff problems for streams.

Dr. Mike Daniels, a division water quality and nutrient management specialist, is using GPS to help with agri tourism. In the summer of 2007, he showed a farm couple how to use GPS to create a corn maze on their farm in Clay County.

The couple had had corn mazes since 1974, but it always took two or three weeks to draw out the plan on paper and do elaborate field measurements. With a handheld GPS receiver and laptop computer, Daniels laid out the maze in a day and a half.

Willa Williams, a 4-H youth agriculture associate, is a major proponent of GPS and GIS technology in her work. Her 4-H'ers use it to track physical fitness efforts and for fun projects such as geocaching, a rapidly growing hightech, scavenger hunt. Her 4-H tech team has used it to help map cemeteries for a genealogy society, to help cities locate manhole covers and road signs and to map trails for the Audubon Society.

"Our next big project is to map a 100-mile bike ride route for the upcoming 4-H Centennial. We're going to locate water and bathroom stations on the route as well as road elevations and put them on a map. Bike riders with GPS can download this information," Williams says.

"It's a fun thing. We've gone all over the U.S. and done GPS activities. We're working with teachers, and doing a lot of teaching and workshops. We've opened up our clinics to the public. A lot of outdoorsmen buy a GPS unit and don't know how to use it. So we often have packed houses."

"Imagination is the only limiting factor with this technology," says Gardisser.

(This article was originally published in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Arkansas Land & Life magazine.)