Agroscouting and drones

Some agronomists and farm owners see drones and multispectral imaging as a panacea, and get very upset when the technology fails to live up to their expectations.

In our opinion, several factors contribute to this:

Selling drones without explaining how they work. How to launch a quadcopter can be figured out, but how to put it into production to make it really work is another conversation.

Ignorance of theory. UAV is an element of precision farming system, which directly or indirectly interacts with other mechanisms of the technological process, when we do not pull up additional information for analysis, we lose the relationship, reduce the value and quality of data.

We decided to fill in some gaps and want to shed some light on how and with what to combine multispectral imaging. And we're going to start with agroscouting, or in simple terms, bypassing. Everyone is well aware that it is impossible to walk around a large number of fields and it is not possible to thoroughly study every linear meter, so here UAVs come in handy. For real-time monitoring, the best solution is the DJI P4 Multispectral, which displays NDVI and NDRE on the screen as it flies.

The first work scenario: we launch the quadcopter over the field at an altitude of 100-150 meters, the flight program calculates the vegetation indices and distributes the color according to the values. We need to understand which color corresponds to the average NDVI value in the field, then we need to understand in which areas the index values are lower (if the BBCH stage is more than 40) or higher (if it is the beginning of plant development, but in the case of early stages we advise to check the deviations in both directions). Once points of interest have been determined, it is necessary to check the zones for the presence of pest objects. The method presented above can be called a one-stage method, because monitoring is performed in real time.

The second scenario: the first stage is to shoot the entire field, for this task will be suitable DJI P4 Multispectral, DJI Matrice 200, DJI Matrice 300 + Micasense RedEdge Mx, Micasense RedEdge Altum.

Before shooting, you can make a quick detour (if you have time) and set the calibration sites (areas 3x3 meters, in the corners of which the white sheets or other identification signs, it is white). Calibration sites are needed to identify harmful objects and to compare ground data with UAV images.

We stitch the initial images, build indexes in DJI Terra, if you have DJI P4 Multispectral.

Use Pix4D Fields if you have other equipment. The mechanism of work is similar to the first scenario, we need to know the average NDVI, make a classification, select points of interest, but now we must create a file format .KML or .GeoJSON with the coordinates of points. By loading these files into navigation software, you can easily find areas both from the drone and during a walk-around.

So you can take agroscouting on your farm to the next level.

Farming Aerocomplex based on DJI Matrice 300 RTK + MicaSense Altum + Pix4D Fields

Using drones with multispectral cameras, you can prevent the spread of noxious objects, assess the quality of seedlings, and solve many other tasks. It is important to remember that our recommendations are a template to work with and changes in the scenario are possible, as agriculture is a multifactorial environment and requires an individual approach, especially when it comes to vegetation indices and their values.

Tento web je provozován s využitím systému WordPress. (Česká lokalizace)