By Zeina Mohammed
High above the fields of the Morven Sustainability Lab, drones equipped with heat and light sensors are changing what it means to farm smarter.
This month, researchers and students from the University of Virginia, NASA and the University of Buffalo tested drone technology by flying more than 100 feet above crops to measure plant health at UVA’s 2,900-acre research facility.
“The goal of the project was to improve our ability to predict plant stress and productivity, with the eventual goal of helping farmers both grow better crops, faster and cheaper,” Manuel Lerdau, a UVA professor of environmental sciences and Morven’s research, said.
“This is what’s called ‘precision agriculture,’ trying to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture by giving the farmers much more information about how plants are working.”
The partnership draws on expertise from the three institutions. University of Buffalo researchers developed a new method for guiding drones over agricultural areas to measure plant stress and productivity, while NASA researchers brought their expertise in remote sensing.
The team from UVA focused on prepping the site for the research and conducted fieldwork, flying drones for five days to get a sense of what is growing at Morven.
Source : virginia.edu