Hi and thanks in advance
I wanted to get thoughts and opinions from people for usage of drones and the kind of information you can get.
Searching on the forums i see that there is some interest in drone counting livestock for example and people mentioning apps like Skippy (to scout your field), but i've not seen anyone mention things like using drones to spray fields and what are your thoughts on drones like that. If it's something that interests people or seen as a viable tool that people may add to their toolbox.
But i'm also curious on peoples thoughts on data such as NDVI images of their fields and if data like this is even useful to you. Yes with drones you can fly around and visually see your fields with a traditional camera. But with NDVI images it uses a multispectrual camera to take near-infrared images of your field as a drone flies over, then some processing involved to make sense of the image. The output being the image below.
Where healthier plants reflect more infrared light and unhealthier and stressed plants doing the opposite, you'd be able to see problem areas a bit clearer and review the data year over year to check for patterns. From what I've been able to see, this looks to be more popular in counties like the US but not really seeing anything in the UK. I was wondering why is that? is that from lack of knowing about it or is it not as useful or just lack of people doing this since the cameras are a bit pricey.
I know that this isnt going to replace crop walking but i would imagine it being something that can be done once a month or longer, to get quantifiable and visual data on crops to identify problem areas.
I wanted to get thoughts and opinions from people for usage of drones and the kind of information you can get.
Searching on the forums i see that there is some interest in drone counting livestock for example and people mentioning apps like Skippy (to scout your field), but i've not seen anyone mention things like using drones to spray fields and what are your thoughts on drones like that. If it's something that interests people or seen as a viable tool that people may add to their toolbox.
But i'm also curious on peoples thoughts on data such as NDVI images of their fields and if data like this is even useful to you. Yes with drones you can fly around and visually see your fields with a traditional camera. But with NDVI images it uses a multispectrual camera to take near-infrared images of your field as a drone flies over, then some processing involved to make sense of the image. The output being the image below.
Where healthier plants reflect more infrared light and unhealthier and stressed plants doing the opposite, you'd be able to see problem areas a bit clearer and review the data year over year to check for patterns. From what I've been able to see, this looks to be more popular in counties like the US but not really seeing anything in the UK. I was wondering why is that? is that from lack of knowing about it or is it not as useful or just lack of people doing this since the cameras are a bit pricey.
I know that this isnt going to replace crop walking but i would imagine it being something that can be done once a month or longer, to get quantifiable and visual data on crops to identify problem areas.