Agriculture Mapping & Crop Analysis

[cabbagepatche7]

Hey everyone,

I'm a data engineer and drone pilot who has come to seek the opinion and knowledge of professionals and experts who frequent this forum and contribute to it's topics.

I would like to start servicing my local farms with data and reporting gathered from a multispectral camera attached to my drone to help with things like:

• Constructing up to date high resolution maps
• Field Boundary Maps
• Orthomosiacs
• Vegetation Indexes and Weed Analysis for targeted spraying applications
• Using AI identification for real-time sharing of crop growth information
• I want to help find abnormalities, such as emergence deficiencies, weed pressure, and crop lodging in a timely manner

I genuinely want to help them reduce costs and increase yield with this analysis and data.

But I am not a farmer and I don't know how much this type of analysis is currently used or the costs currently involved for farmers to acquire this.

If the above data and reporting was offered to be provided in both raw data to interface with current mapping software on agricultural machinery and in a PDF format for easy reading would you pay £500 for this service?

I sincerely appreciate any feedback, scepticism, optimism and interesting points to note from you all. I have also selected for this poll to be made public for all to learn from either way.

Thank you,
CabbagePatche7

 

[andyinv]

I think a lot would depend on accuracy, and having a proven track record in delivering results. A flat fee sounds unrealistic - take you a bit longer to survey 5,000 acres as opposed to 50.

Why not find someone local who uses this sort of precision farming (knock on the door of the biggest farm around), and offer to work with them for free to learn what you can realistically provide, and then worry about commercialisation once you understand the viability and economics in greater detail ?

 

[Lieven]

app.onesoil.ai offers NDVI images of your fields for free.

Also evolution of vegetation index:

I don't know if farmers want to pay for such maps.

I also have a drone since 2015, I also considered buying a multispectral camera, but decided not to do it because there was no demand for it at the time.

 

[alomy75]

As above; plenty of providers do a lot of what you’re offering foc or minimal cost via satellite. Boundary maps we all have anyway from either gps or even RPA maps are digital now. Maybe one day when you can make something that a sprayer/whatever can make sense of but we aren’t there commercially yet (im thinking spot spraying).

 

[cabbagepatche7]

I think a lot would depend on accuracy, and having a proven track record in delivering results. A flat fee sounds unrealistic - take you a bit longer to survey 5,000 acres as opposed to 50.

Why not find someone local who uses this sort of precision farming (knock on the door of the biggest farm around), and offer to work with them for free to learn what you can realistically provide, and then worry about commercialisation once you understand the viability and economics in greater detail ?

You are right, a flat fee does sound unrealistic in that case. The idea of working with a farm to understand what I can realistically provide in the first instance is a good idea. Is there any other characteristics of a farm which would be open to this other than a large one? Do any farmers who grow a particular type of crop for instance tend to use this technology more?

 

[cabbagepatche7]

app.onesoil.ai offers NDVI images of your fields for free.

View attachment 1082353




Also evolution of vegetation index:


View attachment 1082352



I don't know if farmers want to pay for such maps.

I also have a drone since 2015, I also considered buying a multispectral camera, but decided not to do it because there was no demand for it at the time.

Thank you for such a detailed response, I had not heard of this before and is exactly the type of information I was seeking.

I agree this poses a serious competitor to the idea, it is free and has some impressive functionality.

Could I ask how you feel about the resolution of those satellite images and the resultant data analysis the AI performed?

Would you for instance feel more persuaded for a drone survey if the accuracy was say, 50% more?

 

[cabbagepatche7]

As above; plenty of providers do a lot of what you’re offering foc or minimal cost via satellite. Boundary maps we all have anyway from either gps or even RPA maps are digital now. Maybe one day when you can make something that a sprayer/whatever can make sense of but we aren’t there commercially yet (im thinking spot spraying).

Good point on the boundary maps, it's rather a weak selling point isn't it?

The raw data can be uploaded into most tractor/drone spraying GPS modules as a GeoJSON, KML or Shapefile.

How about if other vegetation indexes like LCI, NDRE, TGI, VARI were offered - are these also useful?

 

[Lieven]

Thank you for such a detailed response, I had not heard of this before and is exactly the type of information I was seeking.

I agree this poses a serious competitor to the idea, it is free and has some impressive functionality.

Could I ask how you feel about the resolution of those satellite images and the resultant data analysis the AI performed?

Would you for instance feel more persuaded for a drone survey if the accuracy was say, 50% more?

The NDVI images are very accurate.

There is also an android app where you can synchronise with your account on desktop computer or laptop.
OneSoil Scouting app.

If you walk with your smartphone on the field, you can see differences in reality and on your smartphone. Today I inspected a field of winterwheat that showed not egal colour in NDVI map. On the field, I saw that on one side of the field, the wheat was bigger, stronger.

I would not pay for more accuracy, OneSoil maps are good enough for me.

 

[cabbagepatche7]

The NDVI images are very accurate.

There is also an android app where you can synchronise with your account on desktop computer or laptop.
OneSoil Scouting app.

If you walk with your smartphone on the field, you can see differences in reality and on your smartphone. Today I inspected a field of winterwheat that showed not egal colour in NDVI map. On the field, I saw that on one side of the field, the wheat was bigger, stronger.

I would not pay for more accuracy, OneSoil maps are good enough for me.

This makes sense - when I look at the application I can see the cross analysis of big data from weather sensors and satellite images, alongside active annotations from users, helps farmers predict their lands’ productivity, plan and monitor fieldwork and predict the emergence of possible plant diseases and pests.

I also see OneSoil accepts yields to be input afterwards to cross reference predictions vs actual yields - do you see any value in an interim report that the drone could provide in terms of a "mid season" analysis that is accurate relative to the OneSoil prediction before the yield results are in? Almost a halfway health checkpoint?

 

[Lieven]

This makes sense - when I look at the application I can see the cross analysis of big data from weather sensors and satellite images, alongside active annotations from users, helps farmers predict their lands’ productivity, plan and monitor fieldwork and predict the emergence of possible plant diseases and pests.

I also see OneSoil accepts yields to be input afterwards to cross reference predictions vs actual yields - do you see any value in an interim report that the drone could provide in terms of a "mid season" analysis that is accurate relative to the OneSoil prediction before the yield results are in? Almost a halfway health checkpoint?

OneSoil used to have free VAR (Variable application rate) for seeding and fertiliser, based on NDVI.
Now you have to pay for it.

 

[alomy75]

Good point on the boundary maps, it's rather a weak selling point isn't it?

The raw data can be uploaded into most tractor/drone spraying GPS modules as a GeoJSON, KML or Shapefile.

How about if other vegetation indexes like LCI, NDRE, TGI, VARI were offered - are these also useful?

Yes I meant commercially as in into kit that most farmers use presently. I appreciate it’s possible but unless you’re buying a new sprayer now or it’s a couple of years old it’s unlikely to be spot spray compatible (I’m assuming again you mean a single nozzle targeted approach to individual weeds?). As for mid season vegetative updates…I always wonder what it would actually change? Personally I’d forget pesticides completely. If you can harness your tech to reliably make an accurate variable rate Nitrogen field map then you’re onto a winner. I know they’re here now but if you can take them to the next level (take account of drought/other stress; not affected by cloud cover/light levels etc etc etc then you’d hit the jackpot. I’d get an agronomist on board I think.