One of the main obstacles to the larger expansion of precision agriculture is the high cost of the equipments to be used. The generation of yield maps is the easiest step in the sequence of the precision agriculture process. Nevertheless, the availability of yield monitors for all the machines is not always possible when several combines are concomitantly harvesting in a given area. Within this context, this research was carried out aiming to evaluate the decrease of precision of yield maps obtained from data collected in areas where combines not equipped with yield monitors were harvesting concomitantly with combines equipped with such device. Two different interpolation methods, the "inverse of the square distance" and the "kriging", were also evaluated. Initially, the interpolation of the map with all sampling sites (original) was generated, and from that, the elimination of combine steps was performed, therefore originating the simulated maps. To compare the original maps with the simulated ones, the coefficient of relative deviation and the Kappa index were used. The number of eliminated combine steps decreased the precision of yield maps as demonstrated by both interpolation used methods. Therefore, the minimum number of monitors needed in a group of combines depends on the desired precision. Thus, the intercalation of monitored and non-monitored combines should be performed so that the samples are uniformly collected within all the area to be harvested.
precision agriculture; interpolation methods; thematic maps
