Drones | abgag

ABG Ag Services is committed to utilizing new technology to help our clients with data collection. Over the past several years we have been using drones for plot layout and trial monitoring. Recently, we have developed software that allows us to take a drone image of a trial and numerically create NDVI values. The NDVI data is put into a report which includes, the per plot NDVI value, the average value for the trial, and the distribution of values for the trial. Our software can process images from most sensors and create reports for many indices. We have tested our software generated NDVI to hand-held NDVI data and they are comparable. For more information about the capabilities of the software please contact Aaron Powers at Apowers @abgagservices.com.

The image to the left is part of the report that applies a color scale, with red as the lowest NDVI value and green as the highest. The comparison is done between plots in the same replication.

The graph shows the distribution of values from each plot in the first replication. The distribution of values give a more complete view of data variability.

The image above displays the data generated by our software. The first column is the plot name, the second column contains the average plot value. The next columns contain the number of pixels in each value range. These value ranges are labeled in the top row by their upper bound. For example, the third column is labeled 0.5, because an NDVI value ranges from -1 to 1 this means that every value between -1 to 0.5 is counted for in this value range. Any value greater than 0.5 but less than or equal to 0.529 is counted in the next column.