Earth Observation for Crop Growth Monitoring in Precision Agriculture
Gomez Cid, Celestino; Yague, Julia
GMV, SPAIN

The horizon for using Earth observation in precision farming is wide in high-tech exploitations. Precision agriculture aided by Earth observation integrates monitoring, local data, mapping technologies, analysis and decision tools. This paper reflects the precision agriculture service, WINEO, tested by GMV on vineyards since 2010 in La Rioja, Spain. Production is managed under irrigated conditions; yet, extreme inter-annual weather variations substantially hinder harvest volumes. Information on crop critical physiologic parameters is obtained from six seasonal Very High Resolution RapidEye images, between July and October: NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index), fCOVER (fractional vegetation cover), LAI (leaf vegetation index), TCARI (chlorophyll absorption in reflectance index). Furthermore, crop physiographic parameters are analyzed jointly with the crop water balance and the effective rainfall; these parameters are obtained from 15 minute interval weather records and daily MODIS data for the overall crop phonologic cycle.