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Estimating the Canopy Cover of Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz through Aerial RGB Images

Authors:
David Mostaza-Colado
Lidia Díaz-Fuentes
Andrea Collado-Gómez
Pedro Vicente Mauri Ablanque
Aníbal Capuano

Keywords: camelina; remote sensing; canopy cover, soil erosion

Abstract:
In rainfed agriculture, where crop extensions are high, yields are low and profit margins are tight, expensive solutions for crop monitoring are ineffective. Therefore, achieving an effective, fast, low time consuming, and cheap Crop Coverage or Canopy Cover estimation is important, as it is an indicator of the crop vigor or any issue taking place during the plant growth. Moreover, it is also an interesting way to estimate and evaluate the soil covered by vegetation in degraded rural areas and assess problems with soil erosion due to the lack of vegetation. The use of Remote Sensing Technologies as satellite MultiSpectral images offers numerous advantages, as it is a powerful tool. However, lacks the speed of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or drone when gathering images, as it depends on the satellite acquisition calendar. On the other hand, gathering images with conventional cameras is not possible on large farms and plots or hard-to-reach areas. The use of a commercial non professional drone to gather conventional images of a crop is a useful tool to estimate the canopy cover of the crop in different growth stages. This estimation allows detecting problems during the seeding phase or detecting areas where the crop is not growing, along with measuring the percentage of covered soil by the plant. As showed in this paper, we have managed to estimate the canopy coverage of camelina in an experimental plot seeded in two different dates, and assess the crop performance in a reliable way. The average canopy cover for the late seeded plot was 15.55 %, while the in the early seeded plot was 76.09 %.

Pages: 13 to 19

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2021

Publication date: May 30, 2021

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4006

ISBN: 978-1-61208-853-2

Location: Valencia, Spain

Dates: from May 30, 2021 to June 3, 2021