Innovations in Soil

Fertility Assessment: The

Role of Drones in
Agricultural
DR. ANDREW MANU AND TOM LAWLER
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

 UAVs have many names:

 UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems)
 RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems)
 Drones
 UAVs are used for recreation, business, and research
UAV Platforms
 Multi-rotor
 Take off, land and operate in
narrow corridors.
 Generally easier to use.
 Usually less expensive
 Fixed Wing
 Generally have longer flight times and
cover much larger geography.
 Typically have a higher payload capacity
without significantly affecting flight time.
 Larger selection of sensors for more
applications.
UAV Applications
 The adoption of UAVs into everyday work life has exploded over the past
decade and will continue to increase exponentially over the next decade.
 UAV applications include but are not limited to:
 Surveying
 GIS
 Mining
 Environmental Protection
 Forestry
 Urban Planning/ Development
 Agriculture
Surveying
Ground Surveying
 Modern ground surveying uses a base
station and rovers to log data points.
 Laser scanners can also be used to create
point clouds.
 These methods require multiple people
and man hours to cover large areas.
Surveying by use of UAV
 The UAV acts as the rover.
 UAVs collect multiple images.
 These images are stitched together to create
a single image and point cloud.
 The point cloud is a 3 dimensional model of
the land surface used to create topographical
maps.
www.sensefly.com
GIS Applications

 Images taken by UAVs can be transferred

into many GIS software programs.
 This data can is real time up today and can
be manipulated in any way by the user.

ISU
 Mining
 Similar to their use for surveying, UAVs can also be used in mining
to assess surficial mines.
 Flying a drone over an excavation site produces the ability to:
Estimate stockpiles, map future mining sites, plan roads, and many
more services provided by traditional surveyors.

www.sensefly.com

www.signpostsurveys.com
Environmental Protection
 UAVs can be deployed to monitor animal populations.
 Researchers can monitor coastal erosion.
 Also used for habitat management

Turtle Counting Beach Erosion Assessment

www.sensefly.com www.sensefly.com
Forestry Management

 UAVs can be used to manage forest resources and evaluate

deforestation.
 Real time imaging can help quantify the rate of deforestation or aid
in planning logging strategies.
 Images can also be used to create an inventory of species.
Irevolutions.org

harvard.edu
Urban Planning/ Development

 The following information can be collected when using UAVs

for urban planning:
 Traffic flow patterns through corridors without cameras
 Drainage flow patterns based on digital surface models
 Quantified areas of underutilized space
 Real-time imagery
 Public Transportation service expansion
 Flooding Assessment
Agriculture
 UAVs are used in agriculture for crop monitoring. Modified cameras capture
reflected Near Infrared and Red Edge wavelengths of light.
 Images are used for:
 Fertility Management Vegetation Indices
 Crop Scouting created from images
captured by an eBee ag
 Pest identification
UAV.
 Drainage Planning
 Yield Forecasting/ Modeling
www.sensefly.com

www.sensefly.com
Agriculture: Fertility Management
 The Modified cameras on UAVs allow for the creation of vegetation
indices and these indices are used to identify stressed areas in a
field.
 Ground truthing can reveal nutrient deficiencies and in turn be used
to create variable rate prescription maps.

Collect Imagery Ground Truth

Create variable
rate prescription
map to efficiently
utilize inputs.
Agriculture: Crop Scouting
 UAVs can be used to identify problematic areas in a field.
Agriculture: Pest Identification
 Pest identification can be accomplished by two methods:
1. Using spectral reflectance to identify weed species
2. Using a multirotor platform to inspect problematic areas.

Barnyardgrass
Problem: Ponding and Weed
growth. Smooth Crabgrass

ISU ISU
Agriculture: Drainage Planning

 Flying a UAV platform over a field allows

the user to create a Digital Terrain model
(DTM).
 This model can show how water
naturally runs off or ponds in a field.
 The DTM can also be used by tile layers
in order to strategically plan a tile
pattern in the field.

Green indicates higher elevation and

red represents lower elevations.
Agriculture: Yield Forecasting/
Modeling
 Some vegetation indices have strong correlations yield:
 According to J.F. Shanahan et. al. the use of GNDVI and NDVI of remotely sensed
imagery shows high correlations to grain yield particularly during midgrain filling.

1997 1998
V-6 VT R-2 R-3
Correlation
coefficient values for
normalized
vegetation indices
and grain yield at
different phonological
stages
How does data collection with UAVs
work?
 UAV use photogrammetry to survey targeted area.
 Photogrammetry is performed by the following steps:
1. UAV flight and image capture
2. Orthorectification of images
3. Generation of final product
1.) UAV Flight and Image Capture

 Flight planning software is crucial for high quality image capture.

 Certain software products create flight plans that are fully
autonomous or partially autonomous which is extremely helpful for
image capture.
 The flight plan can be used to help calibrate geotags on images to
enhance accuracy of generated maps.
2.) Orthorectification of Images
75%
 As the UAV is completing a mission,
images are being taken with a certain
amount of frontal and lateral overlap.

75%
 Within the frame, tie points are located
which will hold the image together as one
Orthomosaic (one large image).
2.) Orthorectification of Images
 Tie Points are specific features in an image such as a tree in an open field
or a sign or corner of a building that stand out.
 More overlap = Higher quality orthomosaic

www.pix4d.com
3.) Generation of Final Product

 The end result of image orthorectification depending on camera

type is:
 A high resolution orthomosaic image
 A densified 3 dimensional point cloud
 Digital Surface/ Digital Terrain Model (DSM/ DTM)
Integrated Soil Fertility Management
(ISFM) Project
 As part of the Agricultural Technology Transfer Program
lead by IFDC, Iowa State is providing technical support in a
rice production project.
 Rice is being fertilized with biochar made from rice husks
and mixed with rock phosphate.
 15 treatment combinations have been created to test the
solubility of phosphorus when mixed with biochar.
ISFM Project: UAV Component
1. Flood Plain Assessment
 The UAV was flown in June to create
digital terrain models to evaluate the
extent of the flood plains and identify
micro-variability within plots that may
affect yield.
ISFM Project: UAV Component
1. Flood Plain Assessment:
 With the images collected, we were able to create a densified point
cloud and Digital Terrain Model.

Densified Point Cloud Digital Terrain Model

ISU ISU
ISFM Project: UAV component
2. Fertilizer Treatment Comparison
 UAVs will be used to assess plant health,
vigor, and chlorophyll content of each
plot during growing season.
 An NDVI is created using Near Infrared
wavelengths.
 A healthy plant reflects more Near
infrared where a stressed or dying plant
reflects much less Near Infrared
ISFM Project: UAV Component

2. Fertilizer Treatment Comparison

 The plots will be flown during the Tillering to Max Tillering stage and
again at the Booting stage due to the their influence on final yield.
 The NDVI value attained from each plot will be correlated to yield and
compared between treatments at the end of the growing season.
Conclusion

 Implementation of UAVs into everyday life has drastically improved overall

efficiency in many fields.
 Specifically, agriculture benefits tremendously from prescription mapping to land
assessment and many areas in between.
 As UAVs continue to evolve flight times will become longer, software processing
will be expedited, and evolution of data will radically change the way we view the
world around us.
 How can UAVs change your research?
What questions do you have?

 Thank you!
 Contact Information
 Dr. Andrew Manu akmanu@iastate.edu 515-708-3591
 Tom Lawler tlawler@iastate.edu 515-351-7954
 Vincent Avornyno vkavornyo@yahoo.com