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Eastern Shore of MD | I think that you are over thinking it in a sense. You seem 100% on track with realizing that more is needed than data per se and also that NDVI is not the cure all, end all.
There are some decisions that can be made on trends, but some years, or even in a growing season, those trends can be inverse. For instance, a hill might burn up dry for a while and then be the only area to produce due to flooding. Yield data produces good trend and average data over years; soil type maps, soil sampling can as well. I see the benefit of drone data to be quite the opposite - real time - see the data, analyze it, make a decision on it. If there is insect pressure, weed pressure, fertility deficiency in a field, I see a drone, along with SCOUTING, being a good tool to identify that in one pass. Using your scenario of a NDVI map once and three RGB images, combining them and then producing a conglomeration of data would be way too late to correct the problem. Plus in a months time (from first data collection to last), SO much will have changed with the crop itself, hopefully, anyway.
Now, thats not to say that offering a package to farmers to map a field at certain vegetation and reproductive stages of a crop is a bad idea. I would also consider basing it on application timing of fertilizers and herbicides/insecticides/fungicides. I just don't think that showing 'trends' is the correct approach, rather, getting them real time, accurate data when its needed most. Trend data analysis already had BIG players in the field; for instance Agritrend.
As far as your weather event related scenario, I think thats spot on and is going to be a great way for drones to be used for almost all farmers. Hopefully we don't NEED that but mother nature seems to have a way. But even for that, there is not necessarily a need to have 'archived' a history of images from a field. If a hurricane sweeps up the east coast, I believe just a post-event image would suffice to measure acerage effected. After all, adjusters aren't out scouting fields prior to an event themselves anyway.
Lastly, this is just my opinion. This is still relatively new to everyone. A lot relies on us, the farmer, too. Some aren't looking to new technology. Some want to use it but don't have the equipment to VR apply fertilizers and other products. This 'industry' or 'service' is not as simple as collecting and providing data to the masses, unfortunately. Not yet anyway. | |
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Rookie NDVI question
