Information about the Kentucky State University Cooperative Extension Program
Drones for Crop Monitoring: A Farmer's Guide to Aerial Phenotyping Lalit Pun Magar, Graduate Research Assistant Jeremy Sandifer, State Specialist in Agriculture Technology-Small Farms Dr. Anuj Chiluwal, Assistant Professor of Agronomy Kentucky State University
What is drone-based crop monitoring?
Assess growth and yield factors:
Drones can capture images from early emergence to physiological maturity, providing critical stage-specific information. This helps to track growth and development across different periods more easily. Aerial photos can be analyzed to estimate important plant traits like height, canopy cover, plant number, and leaf nitrogen content across the field. Continuous variations in crop growth can be recorded using drone data, which can also be valuable in predicting yield. The comparison between a drone-derived field map showing crop health and a yield map can provide clear site-specific insights into yield performance.
Site-specific resources management and yield improvements:
Flying a drone equipped with cameras or sensors above the crop canopy provides vital aerial information regarding crop conditions. Hence, drones allow growers to perform a quick and informative field scan above the crop. Recently, drone-based crop monitoring has become a popular method to evaluate crop performance by assessing growth and development. A drone is like an eye in the sky that captures pictures or crop information reflected in sensor readings, which can be used to study plant traits and yield. This technology can provide detailed insights into plant health, phenotypic characteristics, and canopy color throughout the field. Farmers and researchers can make an informed decision by analyzing aerial images and identifying problems earlier than their visibility to the naked eyes.
Drone-based images use the frequency of reflected and absorbed light to provide information on plant health across the field. The high-resolution field map showing detailed crop conditions helps growers apply inputs (water, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc.) in the right amount using the right tool at the right time and in the right location. For instance, a NDVI map showing patches of different colors representing different crop conditions, suggests the need for targeted farm interventions like additional inputs or weed control in specific areas.
Benefits of drone-based crop monitoring
Drone-based images show the variability in the field by analyzing the color of different bands reflected from the crop canopy, providing vital information about the field and crop conditions. The application of drones in monitoring crops provides several benefits to farmers:
Early detection of the problems:
Aerial images can visualize several crop stresses caused by pests, diseases, weeds, drought, or nutrient deficiencies before they are noticeable to human eyes. For instance, even in stressed conditions, fields look green to the naked eye, but multi-band images generated by drones can reveal hidden stress levels. This early detection of abnormal crop conditions enables timely field interventions such as site-specific spraying, nutrient application or irrigation before they significantly impact yield.
Provides huge information quickly:
Manual field monitoring requires multiple hours to days to acquire crop growth and development status, whereas drones can scan entire fields in minutes. The images acquired from drones clearly show crop growth patterns and plant health status compared to traditional manual scouting. Drones enable identification of most appropriate crop monitoring stage and the most affected areas to make crop monitoring more efficient rather than repeatedly visiting the entire field.