Crop Production and Soil Carbon; Using Satellites to Quantify Cropping Systems.

Utilization of remote sensing data from satellite platforms for multiple purposes was a hallmark of Paul Doraiswamy’s career. These efforts entailed the application of various satellite systems, e.g., Landsat, MODIS, AVRIS, to different areas around the world to quantify different components of cropping systems ranging from land use evaluation, crop yield estimation, distribution of cropping systems, crop vigor assessment, to assessment of soil carbon changes.  The techniques employed in these different methods represent an advancement of knowledge because they build upon research findings on the utilization of vegetative indices to quantify crop characteristics and applied these to large scale assessments. The methods were refined over time to continue to provide improvements in our ability to identify crops and assess their vigor. This method is available today as part of the crop condition assessment for the United States. Large scale crop yield estimation methods were developed for the major grain crops throughout the world and these methods still remain in place as the framework for global crop assessment. In the Midwest, a combination of remote sensing and simulation models were linked to provide an estimate of the potential changes in soil carbon through the adoption of different tillage systems for corn and soybean production systems. These efforts represented major advances in the application of satellite imagery to assess agricultural systems and productivity and continue to be refined and updated as our knowledge base increases.