Unmanned Aerial System for Precision Crop Sensing.

Precision agriculture tools such as sensor-based technologies make it possible to accurately access the crop’s nutrient status and account for spatial and temporal variability. This enables adjusting fertilizer application rates according to site-specific conditions which results in more efficient, profitable, and sustainable crop production. Remote sensing is a precision agriculture technique that quantitatively measures vegetation indices such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Several sensor-based systems have been developed and are commercially available to producers. Recent research in Montana showed that ground-based optical sensors such as GreenSeeker 505 can be successfully used for  accurate  prediction of crop yield potential mid-season. The development of a sensor-based N optimization algorithm for Montana conditions and wheat varieties is currently underway. The growing interest in sensor-based technologies among Montana producers is offset by the lack of Montana-based research. The automation of farming has led to fewer operators managing increasingly larger acreage, which limits the ability to regularly inspect crops, with lesser chance of identifying problems such as disease, pest infestations, soil issues, or other deficiencies. Drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) are the latest trend in precision agriculture. They provide a flexible platform for simple addition of a variety of elements such as cameras, lights, audio, sensors, video projectors, robotic arms

– which can exponentially increase the utility of the system. Drones are offering agricultural professionals powerful tools for managing both the crop and its growing environment throughout the growing season. The drone–mounted multi-spectral cameras can be utilized to collect crop reflectance measurements, while the drone is flown over the crop canopy. This proposal is put forward to initiate a field-scale drone evaluation for agricultural data collection. Our specific objectives are: I) To evaluate the Multirotor Ready to Fly Kit X4 unmanned aerial system for precision crop sensing, and II) To compare the unmanned aerial system with ground-based handheld sensor – GreenSeeker 505 – for collection of spectral reflectance data. The NDVI- based maps of field experiments will be created using the GreenSeeker and drone-derived reflectance data. The collected NDVI will be incorporated in the database of crop reflectance measurements and utilized for building a sensor-based N optimization algorithm for Montana conditions and wheat varieties. In addition, the collected spectral reflectance data and aerial images will be used for extensive outreach activities, such as creating educational materials, blog posts, grower seminars and workshops and field demonstrations and field days.