Environmental Science · Ecology
High-resolution drone maps detected early crop water stress before changes appeared in other plant measurements. The approach tracked evapotranspiration—the movement of water from soil and plants into the air—across sugar beet, potato and winter wheat fields.
A meta-analysis of maize studies found that sensor-guided, variable-rate nitrogen application reduced total nitrogen use by 18% without affecting grain yields. Nitrogen-use efficiency rose 22%, while partial profit increased 6% relative to uniform-rate applications.
A drone-based system combined images, soil readings and weather data to predict how crop stress might develop. In experiments, its irrigation decisions reduced predicted yield vulnerability by 46.6 and increased water-use efficiency by 41.1 compared with rule-based strategies.
A study used satellite images, farm records and soil–water modeling to map nitrate loss within fields in a drinking-water protection area. Low-yield zones had higher nitrogen surpluses and modeled nitrate concentrations than high-yield zones.
Satellite images often average bare-soil data over long periods, but the colors can change even under similar conditions. Using seven years of Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 reflectance data from more than 27,000 European sites, researchers found that changes in solar angle interacting with rough bare soil explain most of the temporal variation, while surface moisture contributes less.
