Dr. Sudduth has been a Research Agricultural Engineer with ARS in Columbia for over 30 years and has been Research Leader of the Cropping Systems and Water Quality Research Unit since early 2021. His research focuses on solving high-priority problems within the broad context of precision agriculture to address soil and landscape variability and optimize production, economic return, and environmental quality of agricultural systems. In personal and team research, Dr. Sudduth works to develop decision support tools, including advanced sensor technology, for on-farm implementation of sustainable and resilient cropping systems and participate in the evaluation of such systems.

Current Research Activities:

• Applying AI methods and commercial soil sensors for creating 3D maps of soil carbon.
• Investigating sensor-based systems for optimizing planter control systems.
• Evaluating different sensing approaches for hay yield mapping.
• Combining ECa sensing with other data sources to understand spatial and temporal variations in plant-available water.

Key Words: Precision ag; Soil sensing; Soil health; Crop production