Land and crop monitoring with drones
Crops monitoring is the main source of information about their condition, as well as the presence of weeds, diseases and other problems in the field. Monitoring allows you to identify deviations in the growth and development of plants, identify their causes and make operational management decisions.
Monitoring is a complicated process that usually takes a lot of time and patience. This applies to both small and large fields. In the best case, the agronomist can go to the field and inspect the crops manually. In the early stages you can walk deep into the field. But if the crops are mature it becomes much harder. Plants can grow up to two meters in height and above. This greatly complicates the analysis of crops. When examined by "feet" it is difficult to see the full picture on the whole field. And the lack of information is a potential loss.
Today, there are many ways to monitor crops during the season. Among them - the use of drones.
Drone crop monitoring
The use of drones greatly simplifies the collection of the necessary information about the state of crops. Unlike satellites, drones are a more mobile tool, with more detailed data. Due to the fact that the flight altitude of the drone is usually in the range of 100 to 300 meters above the ground, you can get images with a resolution of centimeters per pixel. Drones allow you to collect a huge amount of information in the shortest possible time. On average, one crew is able to cultivate up to 2,500 hectares per day.
A feature of drones is the ability to use spectral cameras, which allow you to obtain photos in the near-infrared spectrum. Based on such images, NDVI indices are calculated. Conventional cameras can also be used for these purposes, but after some modifications or additional data processing.
Conclusion
Every year the quality of cameras increases, as well as the capacity of batteries. Algorithms for processing the collected information are becoming better, and the use of drones is becoming more accessible. This contributes to the fact that monitoring with the use of drones in a few years will become as common in the work of farmers as today the use of GPS on technology.
