Post-harvest drone flights to measure weed growth and yield associations
Date
2022-06-14
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Agricultural & Environmental Letters
Abstract
Drone flights are often only performed during the growing season, with no data collected once harvest has been completed, although they could be used to measure winter annual weed growth. Using a drone mounted with a multispectral sensor, we flew small plot corn (Zea mays L.) fertility, cover crop, and population studies at black layer and 0–14 d after harvest (DAH). Yields had positive correlations to normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) at black layer but often had negative correlations to corn yields 0–14 DAH. After harvest, NDVI could be associated with weed growth, and negative correlations to yield could point to reduced corn canopy allowing light to reach late-season weeds. In fertility studies, excess nitrogen appears to increase weed biomass after harvest, which can be easily identified through drone imagery. Flights should be performed after corn harvest as weed growth may provide additional insight into management decisions.
Core Ideas:
- Corn yields can be correlated to post-harvest weed biomass by using NDVI.
- Drone flights efficiently mapped weeds and made correlations to yield and management.
- Fall weed control can be prioritized using drone mapping.
Abbreviations:
DAH
days after harvest
LAI
leaf area index
NDVI
normalized difference vegetation index
Description
This article was originally published in Agricultural & Environmental Letters. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20081
© 2022 The Authors. Agricultural & Environmental Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Keywords
Citation
Miller, J. O., Shober, A. L., & VanGessel, M. J. (2022). Post-harvest drone flights to measure weed growth and yield associations. Agricultural & Environmental Letters, 7, e20081. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20081