Book excerpt: As the first volume in a unique series concentrating on in-depth discussions of GIS topics, GIS Applications in Agriculture examines ways that this powerful technology can help farmers/firms to produce a greater abundance of crops with more efficiency and at lower costs. Each chapter describes the nature of the problem, examines the purpose of the GIS application, describes methods used to develop the application, provides results, and offers a conclusion as well as other supportive information. When appropriate, it presents the underlying statistical approach for the GIS software that is used. This text also includes a CD-ROM that features data sets and the full color maps produced by the use of GIS.