Saturday, June 6, 2015

Empire Ag Imagery: Comparing Aerial Imagery to Grid Soil Samples

One of our many calibration trials this year is comparing bare soil imagery (enhanced color, green NDVI, and synthesized natural color) to grid soil samples to see if we can predict soil OM (and possibly other soil nutrients) levels. This would allow farmers to decrease the number of soil samples they need to take, but still give them a high level of precision management needed to make variable rate fertilizer applications, variable rate herbicide applications, or variable seeding rates. 

Enhanced Color survey of bare soil.

Green NDVI survery of bare soil.

Synthesized natural color survey of bare soil.

Once we get the grid soil sample results back we'll run some statistical analyses to compare the soil chemical analyses to these three types of imagery along with soil conductivity measurements in some additional fields. After harvest we will fly the fields again to run additional comparisons to evaluate if there are any seasonal changes to our data. 

Read more about this research and other projects on our precision agriculture page on our website, https://www.empireagimagery.com/precision-agriculture/.

Empire Ag Imagery

Empire Ag Imagery’s website is officially up and running. Check it out at https://www.empireagimagery.com/. Be sure to like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.

We are providing on-demand, geo-referenced imagery products to improve crop management. Our plane is equipped with cameras that take NDVI, enhanced color, and high definition natural color images of fields. The mosaics of these images are available for download within 24 hours of our plane flying our customers’ fields. Our plane can cover thousands of acres a day and volume discounts are available. Empire Ag Imagery is the NY dealer for AgPixel.


In addition to these imagery products, I’m offering a wide range of consulting services similar to my former responsibilities with Cornell Cooperative Extension including technical presentations, small group meetings, agronomic writing services, crop consulting services (including specialty crops such as malting barley and hops), and contract research services.