Airborne multispectral and thermal remote sensing for detecting the onset of crop stress caused by multiple factors

摘要

Remote sensing technology has been developed and applied to provide spatiotemporal information on crop stress for precision management. A series of multispectral images over a field planted cotton, corn and soybean were obtained by a Geospatial Systems MS4100 camera mounted on an Air Tractor 402B airplane equipped with Camera Link in a Magma converter box triggered by Terraverde Dragonfly® flight navigation and imaging control software. The field crops were intentionally stressed by applying glyphosate herbicide via aircraft and allowing it to drift near-field. Aerial multispectral images in the visible and near-infrared bands were manipulated to produce vegetation indices, which were used to quantify the onset of herbicide induced crop stress. The vegetation indices normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVT) showed the ability to monitor crop response to herbicide-induced injury by revealing stress at different phenological stages. Two other fields were managed with irrigated versus non-irrigated treatments, and those fields were imaged with both the multispectral system and an Electrophysics PV-320T thermal imaging camera on board an Air Tractor 402B aircraft. Thermal imagery indicated water stress due to deficits in soil moisture, and a proposed method of determining crop cover percentage using thermal imagery was compared with a multispectral imaging method. Development of an image fusion scheme may be necessary to provide synergy and improve overall water stress detection ability.