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An important component of the wheat research agenda is breeding and developing new varieties. One of the new high-tech components of that work involves drone imagery to monitor field attributes of new varieties throughout the growing season.
By Dr. Bruno Basso
This Basso project was funded to provide aerial imagery and data from an agricultural drone on 36 research plots of new wheat varieties developed by MSU wheat breeder Dr. Eric Olson. The drone imagery was taken multiple times throughout the growing season.
The procedure provides a snapshot of plant reflectance of a whole field with a quick turn-around. Reflectance from a variety of vegetation indices can be exported from individual plots, allowing important notes associated with their growth and development over the growing season.
In this trial, 15 flights were made from November through late June over the Mason Research Farm. A key final objective of this study was to develop and apply a predictive model linked to the drone imagery to better understand wheat growth and development.
Click below to review the 2018 PowerPoint slides and 2018 final report.
The Michigan Wheat Program is a state-check off program voted in by the state’s wheat farmers to assess each bushel of wheat grown and sold. The funds from the program are utilized to further the wheat industry in the state benefitting the state’s nearly 8,000 wheat farmers who grow about 450,000 acres of wheat annually producing about a 40 million bushel crop.