I have been discussing with the main farmer that I am working with where this process of using DD to be effective. We have discussed variable rate applications and the spraying technology available now. The whole point of this post would be is there a piece of software that can take NDVI maps from DD and convert them and export them to a piece of spraying equipment for proper spraying applications. Where there is money to be made is scanning a week prior to each spraying cycle then allowing farmers to apply rates of fertilizer at adjusted rates to fit the desired intent of the crop. For Example: Areas that are not doing so well applying twice the normal fertilizer while areas that are doing surprisingly well limit their fertilizer to save money.
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Hi Ashair,
I’m looking into exactly the same application for dd.Have you had any luck yet finding software to do the job.
Hope to hear from you.
Kind regards Gyles
Hey Ashair,
Most agriculture GIS software (Ag Leader SMS, Trimble Farmworks, SST) can handle this. It will end up being very pricey to get the features you are looking for. My Ag Leader SMS is $1600 w/$450/yr maintenance fee.
Your best bet might be to team up with his ag retailer to take the NDVI data and build the maps for the sprayer. You are really going to want someone with some knowledge on NDVI to build those maps, because NDVI will look different even to each hybrid in the field. Also building the analysis to take the the NDVI map to a Variable rate prescription will take quite a bit of time and trial and error in these software packages.
I am a farmer that has looked at NDVI data usefulness on the farm, and its hard to justify. Really will need to ground truth (go out in the corn field on that 95 degree day with the 80% relative humidity) those images first to see if it is really an issue that can be corrected first with sprayer. An NDVI image wont tell you whats wrong, only that there might be an issue.