Utilizing Aerial Imagery to Make Enhanced Agronomic Decisions

• Golden Harvest^® Seeds leverages technology to bring value to farmers.

• Aerial imagery brings farmers actionable crop management information.

• Images and reports help set season-long recommendations and expectations.

Introduction

Proactively monitoring fields for potential issues at just the right time is critical for timely management decisions. The biggest challenge is having the time and ability to effectively scout every field in a timely manner. Scouting corn can become even more challenging later in the season. As part of Service 365, Golden Harvest has partnered with DroneDeploy to offer aerial imagery and field reporting for timely insights and to help make difficult management decisions easier (Figure 1). In the first season, Golden Harvest agronomists were able to utilize the latest drone technology with DroneDeploy crop analytics software to fly more than 3,000 flights and deliver imagery for valuable crop insights (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Mavic 2 Pro with DroneDeploy Software

Figure 2. Summary of 2021 flights by region

Actionable Crop Management

Aerial imagery has proven to be an efficient, safe and effective digital tool to help streamline Golden Harvest agronomy support throughout the growing season. Aerial imagery allows agronomists and farmers the ability to cover more acres from the ground and to get a more holistic view of what is going on from the sky. Here’s a closer look at 3 of the most popular DroneDeploy software features that help agronomists provide more accurate management suggestions and set season-long expectations.

1. Stand Counts: Early-season stand counts are an important step in the process of making replant decisions. An accurate stand count can help compare the economic trade-off with lower yield expectations of a reduced stand or replanting. However, it can take a lot of time to manually walk and assess an entire field. DroneDeploy software estimates the average number of plants and plant spacing at multiple spots across the field and quickly identifies specific areas with lower stands. Agronomists can quickly zoom in and view specific areas of the field to better diagnose the cause of the problem. Upon completing the flight, a report is generated that summarizes the findings and map stand estimates in each part of the field (Figure 3).

   
   Figure 3. Stand count report from DroneDeploy after a flight

2. Plant Health: Visualizing crop stress can be invaluable for understanding field variability and evaluating how genetics respond to soil types or specific diseases. DroneDeploy Live Plant Health Maps can help quickly visualize in-season crop variation and field stress. Hundreds of photos are captured and stitched together on the fly to produce a single high-resolution standard orthomosaic RGB (red, green and blue) map. Following the flight, a Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI) plant health map is produced utilizing green light reflectance (Figures 4 and 5). Plant health maps can help highlight areas of stress that may otherwise be undetectable.

   
   Figure 4. Live Plant Health Map partially through a flight
   
   Figure 5. Post-processed plant health (VARI) orthomosaic map

   Areas of concern in a field can then be more precisely outlined for ground truthing the cause of the problem, calculating areas affected and creating prescription maps (Figure 6). This saves time and ensures areas of potential issues are not overlooked as may happen with random point scouting. Agronomists can generate a report containing the map, additional photos, notes and the estimated acres affected when scouting is completed.

   
   Figure 6. Using DroneDeploy software, the area of a stress-affected area can be calculated and annotated for later reference

3. Panoramas and Photos: Panoramas are a very quick way to capture a 360° bird’s-eye view of a field when advanced analysis is not necessary. These photos can help show how widespread a field condition is or provide a general direction of where to scout in a field (Figure 7). General photos can also be used to capture field operations such as planting and harvest or other events.
   
   
   Figure 7. Panoramic view of fields

Season-Long Recommendations and Expectations

The ability to use aerial imagery to get new perspectives of fields allows the Golden Harvest team to give better recommendations throughout the growing season. It helps fine-tune herbicide and fungicide recommendations, set yield potential expectations and prioritize harvest schedules. Aerial imagery is a beneficial tool for farmers. Golden Harvest is determined to deliver the ultimate service experience from planting to harvest on every farm. Aerial imagery is another tool that helps deliver upon that goal.

To hear more about the overall value of drone technology, watch this video. To learn more about using drones to take stand counts, watch this video.

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