![](\"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Ashley_Bennett-web_2-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA bird\u2019s eye view can sometimes give a better picture of a situation.
Integrated pest management researchers at New Mexico State University are adapting the concept by using specialized cameras on drones to locate plants suffering from stress.
\u201cWith the use of a multispectral camera, we are collecting red and near-infrared spectral bands,\u201d said Ashley Bennett, urban IPM specialist with the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. \u201cFrom these bands we can calculate a plant stress metric called normalized difference vegetation index.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ashley Bennett, New Mexico State University urban farm integrated pest management specialist, lands a drone during a multispectral photography study of plants to determine if the plants are under stress from insects, disease or drought.<\/p>\n
NDVI ranges from negative one to one. The greener the plant is, the healthier it is and the closer the NDVI value is to one. The more a plant is stressed the closer the value is to negative one. Images range from green for healthy plants, to red for stressed plants.
\u201cMany factors can cause plant stress,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cIt could be an insect, a disease or water stress.\u201d
Bennett has been developing the methods for collecting data during the summer by flying a drone over grape vineyards looking for plants stressed from root-eating nematodes and leaf-eating hopper insects. Ultimately, she also wants to use the technology to identify trees in city parks that are stressed from insect pests.
\u201cOne of the potential benefits of using drones to monitor for insect pests whether in agricultural fields or city parks is the time this technology can save in locating stressed plants,\u201d she said. \u201cWithout the drone, a person has to walk the entire vineyard or park looking for signs of stress from insect feeding.\u201d
Bennett and Miranda Kersten, NMSU program manager, use Mission Planner, an autopilot software to fly the drone while photographing the plants.
\u201cFor the flight today, the drone will fly 20 meters above the field at about five miles per hour,\u201d Bennett said while using the drone to determine if there is hopper insect stress on grapevines at NMSU\u2019s Agricultural Science Center at Los Lunas. \u201cIt will take under five minutes to make four passes over the four rows of grape vines.\u201d
Prior to the flight, Kersten had programmed the autopilot software with GPS coordinates for the flight and uses distance to trigger when photos are taken. During the Los Lunas flight, the camera took a shot every five meters.
When Kersten processes the digital photos, the 60 shots collected will generate 300 pictures because each time the camera triggers, five pictures are captured.
\u201cPrior to the flight we decide what bands we want to capture,\u201d Kersten said. \u201cWhen all of the bands are turned on we collect pictures in green, red, red edge and near-infrared. We also take a color photo with each shot.\u201d
The images are processed with Pix4D software, a post-processing software for drone-based imagery. The drone-captured images are downloaded, stitched together and processed to produce a map showing NDVI values for the grape vines. The NDVI map of the surveyed grapevines will appear green if the vines are healthy to red if the vines are showing signs of stress from insect feeding.
\u201cIn addition to using the drone to identify plant stress, we will also use a hand-held NDVI meter, which will allow us to compare ground-collected NDVI values with those collected using the drone,\u201d Bennett said.
While no obvious signs of stress have been observed so far this season, Bennett expects to see more later in the season.
\u201cI hope with later flights we will be able to identify where nematodes are present in vineyards, or where we have hopper insect damage,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cBecause insect populations build over the season, I anticipate flights later in the season will show more stress.\u201d
In 2017, NMSU received a three-year U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for $634,286 for delivery of IPM education and outreach to New Mexico communities. The drone project is part of the grant.
\u201cThis technology is being used elsewhere in the country for pest monitoring,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cSo I am hopeful that we will be able to use this technology here in New Mexico as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bird\u2019s eye view can sometimes give a better picture of a situation.
\nIntegrated pest management researchers at New Mexico State University are adapting the concept by using specialized cameras on drones to locate plants suffering from stress.
\n\u201cWith the use of a multispectral camera, we are collecting red and near-infrared spectral bands,\u201d said Ashley Bennett, urban IPM specialist with the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. \u201cFrom these bands we can calculate a plant stress metric called normalized difference vegetation index.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley Bennett, New Mexico State University urban farm integrated pest management specialist, lands a drone during a multispectral photography study of plants to determine if the plants are under stress from insects, disease or drought.<\/p>\n
NDVI ranges from negative one to one. The greener the plant is, the healthier it is and the closer the NDVI value is to one. The more a plant is stressed the closer the value is to negative one. Image..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}