February 28, 2020

How food processors use FluroSense to evaluate potato planting density trials

Marie Marion
Agronomist and Project Manager

Note: In 2021, FluroSat and soil health startup Dagan combined forces to become Regrow. Up-to-date information about the Regrow platform can be found on regrow.ag.

The challenge 

  • Potato planting density/rate directly affects yields, but the optimal density varies for specific sites (soil and environmental conditions) and variety
  • On-farm trials to find optimal density (especially for farms planting potato for the first time) can get extremely labour intensive and repetitive when it comes to analysing results manually


Solutions

  • Quantifiable metrics such as crop performance are imperative to objectively assess optimal planting density
  • FluroSat arranged for drone flight (fitted with Micasense MX Rededge multispectral camera) over the trials to collect biomass (NDVI) and canopy chlorophyll content (NDRE, CCCI)
  • Drone imagery was then stitched and processed using Pix4D software
  • Using FluroSense, the remote sensing data is easily divided into the trial plots and compared – even over different plantings


Maximising radiation: water and nutrient use efficiency
is the main goal of planting rate optimisation.

Data analysis

Separating the trials

In the FluroSense software, it is easy to use the drone orthomosaic to set up the boundaries of each plot, which can be used for all images in the future.

Trial "net" is simple to set up in FluroSense and it allows to extract index values automatically

One of the benefits of drone data is its high resolution (2.5 cm/pixel), which allows to easily locate and analyse the trials individually. The trial "net" in FluroSense is used to automatically extract NDVI values of each trial.

Assessing NDVI

NDVI is normally associated with plant vigour, and values range from 0-1. High NDVI is correlated with healthy, green plants with high canopy biomass. The scale allows enough variability to differentiate between planting rates. NDVI is most effective for inferring information during mid-early growth stages of the plant development since it becomes saturated after canopy closure. 

Watch our tutorial here on how to track crop growth with appropriate vegetation indices.

The image below shows the variability of the average NDVI across the trial plots. The greener, the higher the NDVI. The redder, the lower the NDVI.

NDVI index in the range [0.20 - 0.33] coloured red to green

Assessing crop cover percentage

The same method of per plot metric extraction and colouring has been used on the crop cover percentage. Crop cover percentage can be calculated by taking a ratio:

pixels with vegetation / total area of the plot

Higher crop cover values mean that the canopy will be able to capture the solar radiation more efficiently than the areas with fewer plants. 

Crop canopy cover in the range [0.19 - 0.63] coloured red to green

Planting density outcomes

  1. The study has shown that crop cover percentage and NDVI were highly correlated. No big surprises here, but having a quantifiable result allows assessing the significance of the correlation as well as the variance.
  2. There's a high correlation between the calculated indicators (crop cover percentage and NDVI) and the crop planting density. Increasing the number of plants per ha/acre is a straightforward way to optimise planting and increase plant growth and thus, yield

Flurosat takes data analysis to the next level. We can finally make half-measures that are highly dependent on the observer a thing of the past and have factual, comparable data from drone imagery. Data that is reliable, is consistent, is accurate. Data that can be worked down even to individual plants. Everybody knows that precise agriculture is the future and Flurosat makes some promising and solid developments towards that goal!

Dimitrios Syminelakis, Potato Food Processor

Have a trial you needs to evaluate? Drop us a line to book FluroSense demo and get access to tools that make trial data analysis easy.

Continue reading:

Blog
September 15, 2023

Rajesh Nerlikar Joins Regrow as Vice President of Product

Hey there, I’m Rajesh, and I’m thrilled to join Regrow as Vice President of Product. I’ve spent my entire career working on mission-driven B2B2C products, and it’s deeply gratifying to know you’re making a difference in the world.

Regrow
Team
News
September 13, 2023

Regrow CEO Anastasia Volkova Named to TIME100 List of the Next 100 Most Influential People in the World

TIME100 Next highlights 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future of business, entertainment, sports, politics, health, science, activism and more.

Regrow
Team
Blog
September 6, 2023

SBTi FLAG Guidance: What You Need to Know

And how to set an appropriate target

Regrow
Team

Keep up with Regrow!

There is always a lot going on at Regrow and you are not going to want to miss a thing.

Custom Styles