Background Precision farmers would like to monitor their fields through out the growing season for anomalies that represent disease, damage due to wind, hail or wet conditions. They would also like to monitor the field conditions that reveal bad or good management practices. Ground methods are not always time and cost effective. Besides, they are inadequate in most cases.

 Use of DataThe data collected over St. Thomas township in North Dakota, from the two flights in 1999 provided the end users a first time opportunity to use high-resolution imagery and obtain information on a field level. Farmers were able to obtain detailed information, including the identification of stress areas caused by wind damage, crops damaged due to inundation, fertilizer skips, cultivator blights, planter skips, fungicide trials and lodging.

The accompanying figure shows the details obtainable from ADAR 5500 imagery. The information from high-resolution imagery added credibility to what was observed on the ground. The smaller anomalies that could not be noticed on the ground could be easily identified on the imagery helping improve planting and management practices.

For example, the planter's skips observed, occurred as a result of the planter turning too close to the wet area (shown as drown out). This happened because the planter was plugged with mud and the operator was not aware of the problem. The imagery showed the problem well and helped alleviate it in the subsequent years. The image showing wind damage reinforced the importance of planting cover crop to alleviate sugarbeet stand loss due to wind.

 Economic and Environmental BenefitsThe anomalies observed on high-resolution imagery helped in improving management practices for the subsequent years, resulting in increased area under crop and ultimately higher production.