Precision Agriculture Notes

Assessment Overview

  • Focus on practical applications of precision agriculture.
  • Assessment item 3 has been modified (check emails for the link).
  • Choose a CSU field or your own; if using your own, send the KML file.

Rainfall Data

  • Use online spatial data sources to identify annual rainfall.
  • For CSU fields (e.g., CSU20, CSU256), find monthly averages (rainfall, temperature) for Wagga Wagga.
  • Present data in a table (month vs. average rainfall/temperature) for one year.

Precision Agriculture Plan

  • Describe a plan for implementing precision agriculture, including satellite selection and justification.
  • Download and analyze satellite imagery for three dates (temporal scenes).

Report Structure

  • Cover page (optional template provided).
  • Introduction (example sentences provided).
  • Form description: city/region (e.g., Wagga Wagga), GPS coordinates (if available).
  • Climate data: monthly rainfall/temperature averages (table or bar chart).
  • Soil texture: use CSIRO database for soil types in the region.
  • Crop: mention general crop type (field crop or grazing crop).
  • Step-by-step guidance on satellite data and vegetation indices.
  • Conclusion.
  • Use the provided template to complete the assessment.

Monitoring Fields

  • Use module eight presentation
  • Asset Name: Mention the asset name first when opening the tool.
  • Start/End Dates: Define the monitoring period.
  • Select Desirable Dates from the drop-down menu.

Tool Usage

  • Case-sensitive asset names (e.g., wheat_ch).
  • Select date range for monitoring (approximately 5-day satellite pass interval).
  • Choose dates matching crop growth stages (e.g., April for wheat).
  • Avoid dates with excessive cloud cover (white patches).

Indices

  • NDVI (crop vigor), NDMI (crop moisture), SAVI/ENSAVI (soil adjusted).
  • NDRE (nitrogen), RECI (red edge chlorophyll index).
  • For each date, choose one or two indices.
  • Maintain consistency in the season/year when selecting indices.
  • Take screenshots of the map and legend.

Data Interpretation

  • Use the hand tool to check index values and long-term graphs.
  • Analyze the graph to understand crop performance over different years.
  • NDVI: good indicator of greenness or general crop vigor. Also indicates seasonal dry wheat cultivation

Date Selection

  • Choose three dates within one year (e.g., 2024).
  • Select dates during early stage (June), mid-season (mid-August), and peak growth (October).

Monitoring Process

  • Compute NDVI to create a temporal graph.
  • Use the graph to select appropriate monitoring dates.

Zoning

  • Analyzes AI-based that identifies which patches are good vs bad.
  • Select zoning to divide the field into homogeneous parts.
  • Zones: divides a field into homogeneous parts.
  • Use a demonstration to understand how zoning of the index occurs based on the NDVI value.
  • The zones can expose different areas as per the NDVI data which may need attention (water or fertilizer). Based on this, an intuition is developed for that area specifically.

Zone Mapping

  • Digitize a small area using the tool to create a KML file.
  • Use the KML file with Google Maps to navigate to the specific field location for physical scouting.
  • Enter GPS Latitude and Longitude into Google Maps to get to particular location and directions.

Further Actions & Analysis

  • Compute NDMI (Normalized Difference Moisture Index) for the selected date.
  • Zones for Soil Adjusted Vegetation index determine what areas have too much or too little vegetation.
  • Additional AI-based zoning based on vegetation index.

Questions and Answers:

  • Multiple indices, is there a limit? For each date, you may compute one or two indices
  • Use indices for multiple dates? Keep this in mind, as this is the same action farmers take to remote guidance on crops.

Further Resources

  • Blog Posts: Best practices for monitoring crops (pre-planting, early growth, flowering, maturity); vegetation indices for precision agriculture.
  • Tutorial 5-6 for learning and life long asset. Tutorial 6-7 frees you from the tool.
  • Monitor crops? in April-May in the Australian context.