Use of remote sensing techniques to analyse lodging level in cereal crops

Abstract

openNowadays, there is high attention to sustainability in all areas of human activities. But what does sustainability mean? As the World Commission on Environment and Development says, sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Definitively, it is possible to affirm that sustainability is based on three main pillars: the social one, the economic one and the environment. If all those pillars will be met, sustainability can be reached. What about agriculture? There are several definitions for Sustainable Agriculture, one says that Sustainable Agriculture is the efficient production of safe, high quality agricultural products, in a way that protects and improves the natural environment, the social and economic conditions of farmers, their employees and local communities, and safeguards the health and welfare of all farmed species (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform). The aim of this dissertation is to illustrate how Precision Agriculture can help not only farmers, but also agriculture business operators to process the right decision in order to satisfy sustainable principles. New technologies are useful to manage resources employed in agricultural processes such as soil, water, fertilizers or pesticide, but also to reduce wastage maximizing yields and, consequently farm profit. In particular, the dissertation is going to illustrate how monitoring technologies implementation is useful to manage soil, crop and weather with proximal and remote sensing. Those collected data can be processed, corrected and interpreted by operators in order to generate Decision Support System which is useful to improve company’s decision-making capability. The study focuses on one of the main extensive crops, barley, in particular on its lodging. Different barley varieties were tested on 195 plots located in Idice, province of Bologna, North-East Italy to asses which one can better resist to lodge and to demonstrate how Unmanned Aerial Vehicle can be useful to monitor crop evolution. In fact, UAV was employed to collect data and, to validate them, crop smart scouting was necessary. After data collection and correction, a Digital Elevation Model has been created in order to evaluate three classes: laid crop, partial laid crop, no laid crop. The study evidences how remote sensing, in particular UAV’s, can help to process data otherwise hard to collect, giving useful information to farmers and business operators to make the right decision with high accuracy in short time.Nowadays, there is high attention to sustainability in all areas of human activities. But what does sustainability mean? As the World Commission on Environment and Development says, sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Definitively, it is possible to affirm that sustainability is based on three main pillars: the social one, the economic one and the environment. If all those pillars will be met, sustainability can be reached. What about agriculture? There are several definitions for Sustainable Agriculture, one says that Sustainable Agriculture is the efficient production of safe, high quality agricultural products, in a way that protects and improves the natural environment, the social and economic conditions of farmers, their employees and local communities, and safeguards the health and welfare of all farmed species (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform). The aim of this dissertation is to illustrate how Precision Agriculture can help not only farmers, but also agriculture business operators to process the right decision in order to satisfy sustainable principles. New technologies are useful to manage resources employed in agricultural processes such as soil, water, fertilizers or pesticide, but also to reduce wastage maximizing yields and, consequently farm profit. In particular, the dissertation is going to illustrate how monitoring technologies implementation is useful to manage soil, crop and weather with proximal and remote sensing. Those collected data can be processed, corrected and interpreted by operators in order to generate Decision Support System which is useful to improve company’s decision-making capability. The study focuses on one of the main extensive crops, barley, in particular on its lodging. Different barley varieties were tested on 195 plots located in Idice, province of Bologna, North-East Italy to asses which one can better resist to lodge and to demonstrate how Unmanned Aerial Vehicle can be useful to monitor crop evolution. In fact, UAV was employed to collect data and, to validate them, crop smart scouting was necessary. After data collection and correction, a Digital Elevation Model has been created in order to evaluate three classes: laid crop, partial laid crop, no laid crop. The study evidences how remote sensing, in particular UAV’s, can help to process data otherwise hard to collect, giving useful information to farmers and business operators to make the right decision with high accuracy in short time