“Precision Agriculture," also called site-specific farming, can be defined as the application of cultural practices – such as fertilization and planting – in a spatially variable manner within an agricultural field. Additionally, the term Precision Agriculture implies the automation of techniques employed to do this, for example, recording the crop yield with a continuously recording yield monitor rather than taking many separate measurements of yield and manually recording the results. Need for Workgroup: Precision Agriculture (PA) research began in the grain production areas of the US in the late 1980s. Very little PA research has been conducted in the more diversified, irrigated cropping systems of the Pacific Coast states. Farmers in California have begun to adopt – on a small scale – the use of some of the technologies listed in Table 1. Research organizations such as DANR and the USDA-ARS have made little organized effort to coordinate activities within the state or to communicate with growers and allied industry. The result of this lack of organization is, to mention one important example, that UCCE county farm advisors are usually unable to respond knowledgeably to inquiries from growers about the use of aerial or satellite imagery, GIS services, yield monitors, variable rate fertilizer application, and other technologies that are being marketed to them. Precision Agriculture (PA) is not specifically mentioned anywhere in DANR’s Program Priorities, indicating the invisibility of this important new technology area within the University of California. However, the potential benefits of PA are related to several of DANR’s highest priority issues and goals, as shown in Table 2. PA may benefit growers by allowing them to apply inputs only in the areas of a field where they are required, rather than applying them uniformly to an entire field. PA also promises environmental benefits by reducing the total load of nutrients, pesticides, etc. applied to a field. Will adoption of PA technologies actually deliver these economic and environmental benefits? A more organized collaboration within UC and among UC, other government agencies, growers, and allied industries, is badly needed if this question is to be answered. Structure and Operational Procedures: Before the initial workgroup meeting, a small planning group will develop and implement an e-mail survey of DANR members to determine current involvement with and interest in Precision Agriculture or any of its component technologies. The survey will also ask for in-service training needs. While developing the survey, we will consult with Dr. Maggi Kelly, chair of the DANR workgroup on Monitoring Landscape Change, which is planning a similar needs assessment. The survey results will be used at the workgroup meeting. A second document to be used will be the Precision Agriculture for California technical manual, which is currently in preparation with funding from the CDFA Fertilizer Research and Education Program. The initial meeting will combine a statewide conference and planning meeting. At the latter, the group will begin assessing needs for research and extension, in-service training, and communication. We will consider whether to establish an e-mail list group, a newsletter, and/or a web site. Priorities will be chosen and potential funding sources identified. The final report for Year 1 will be used in developing the request to DANR for additional workgroup funding.