Nitrogen has long been a nuisance for farmers. Apply too little and crop yields suffer. Apply too much, and you run the risk of runoff. With agriculture under the environmental microscope, excessive runoff could hamstring farmers with restrictive environmental regulations that raise their production costs.
To counter the situation, researchers and farmers are working with variable nitrogen application. This would automatically adjust nitrogen rates on the go according to plant needs. This story would include a look at what progress companies have made in developing this technology along with farmer and researcher interviews on the successes and failures.