Life Sciences Commons^™

Informing Field Management Decisions To Enhance Alfalfa Seed Production Using Remote Sensing, Thomas V. Van Der Weide

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The development rate of alfalfa seed crop depends on both environmental conditions and management decisions. Crop management decisions, such as determining when to release pollinators to optimize pollination, can be informed by the identification of plant development stages from remote sensing data. I first identify what electromagnetic wavelengths are sensitive to alfalfa plant development stages using hyperspectral data. A Random Forest regression is used to determine the best Vegetation Index (VI) to monitor how much of the plant is covered in flower. The results indicate that Blue, Green, and Near-Infrared are the important electromagnetic wavelengths for the VI. Imagery collected …

Use Of Uav Imagery And Nutrient Analyses For Estimation Of The Spatial And Temporal Contributions Of Cattle Dung To Nutrient Cycling In Grazed Ecosystems, Amanda Shine

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nutrient inputs from cattle dung are crucial drivers of nutrient cycling processes in grazed ecosystems. These inputs are important both spatially and temporally and are affected by variables such as grazing strategy, water location, and the nutritional profile of forage being grazed. Past research has attempted to map dung deposition patterns in order to more accurately estimate nutrient input, but the large spatial extent of a typical pasture and the tedious nature of identifying and mapping individual dung pats has prohibited the development of a time- and cost-effective methodology. The first objective of this research was to develop and validate …

New Frontiers And Perspectives In Grassland Technology, Jürgen Schellberg, E. Verbruggen

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Grassland scientists and farmers are increasingly faced with emerging new technologies and in-formation systems that have been primarily developed by engineering sciences in particular: precision agriculture, remote sensing, geographic localization and biotechnology. Whether the implementation of any of these technologies may be beneficial in economic and ecological respect is a challenging judgment call, especially for those who have to carry over that decision on their farm. Compared to arable land, new technologies have been applied on grassland only partially and with some delay. However, as we will demonstrate, there is place for a successful implementation of new technologies in various …

Unmanned Aircraft System (Uas) Technology And Applications In Agriculture, Samuel C. Hassler, Fulya Baysal-Gurel

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Numerous sensors have been developed over time for precision agriculture; though, only recently have these sensors been incorporated into the new realm of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). This UAS technology has allowed for a more integrated and optimized approach to various farming tasks such as field mapping, plant stress detection, biomass estimation, weed management, inventory counting, and chemical spraying, among others. These systems can be highly specialized depending on the particular goals of the researcher or farmer, yet many aspects of UAS are similar. All systems require an underlying platform—or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—and one or more peripherals and sensing …

Remote Sensing Of Ploidy Level In Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuloides Michx.), Benjamin Blonder, Bente J. Graae, Burke Greer, Marja Haagsma, Kenny Helsen, Rozália E. Kapás, Henry Pai, Jolanta Rieksta, Dillon Sapena, Christopher J. Still, Richard Strimbeck

Aspen Bibliography

1. Ploidy level in plants may influence ecological functioning, demography and response to climate change. However, measuring ploidy level typically requires intensive cell or molecular methods.
2. We map ploidy level variation in quaking aspen, a dominant North American tree species that can be diploid or triploid and that grows in spatially extensive clones. We identify the predictors and spatial scale of ploidy level variation using a combination of genetic and ground‐based and airborne remote sensing methods.
3. We show that ground‐based leaf spectra and airborne canopy spectra can both classify aspen by ploidy level with a precision‐recall harmonic mean of 0.75–0.95 and …

Variable Rate Irrigation Of Maize And Soybean In West-Central Nebraska Under Full And Deficit Irrigation, J Burdette Barker, Sandeep Bhatti, Derek M. Heeren, Christopher M.U. Neale, Daran Rudnick

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

Variable rate irrigation (VRI) may improve center pivot irrigation management, including deficit irrigation. A remote-sensing-based evapotranspiration model was implemented with Landsat imagery to manage irrigations for a VRI equipped center pivot irrigated field located in West-Central Nebraska planted to maize in 2017 and soybean in 2018. In 2017, the study included VRI using the model, and uniform irrigation using neutron attenuation for full irrigation with no intended water stress (VRI-Full and Uniform-Full treatments, respectively). In 2018, two deficit irrigation treatments were added (VRI-Deficit and Uniform-Deficit, respectively) and the model was modified in an attempt to reduce water balance drift; model …

Of Fire, Mammals, And Rain: Mechanisms Of Plant Invasions, Tara Boyce Bishop

Theses and Dissertations

Biological invasions are driving environmental state changes on a global scale. Exotic plant species must be successful at passing several abiotic and biotic filters to establish and disrupt the native plant community assembly. Understanding where exotic plants are on a regional scale and being able to characterize how exotic plants are generally interacting with their environment is crucial information for exotic species management (chapter 1). In the western United States human-related activities are augmenting the spread of exotic plant species by increasing the ignitions of wildfire. Wildfire can lead to nutrient pulses through the removal of intact native communities and …

Remote Sensing Approaches To Improve Water And Nitrogen Management Of Kentucky Bluegrass (Poa Pratensis), Austin Hopkins, Dr. Neil C. Hansen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project identifies remote sensing practices to conserve water by optimizing nitrogen (N) fertilization and irrigation strategies. Turfgrass is the most irrigated crop by area (163,800 km2 ), accounting for 1.9% of the continental U.S. This causes negative environmental impacts and puts the future of irrigated turfgrass in question due to increasing water scarcity, especially in the western U.S. More information is needed on how to irrigate in droughts and water limited areas as turf provides significant benefits in our environment such as aesthetics, cooling effects, carbon sequestration, and preventing soil erosion.

Evaluating Sorghum Senescence Patterns Using Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles And Multispectral Imaging, I. Barnhart, L. H. Moro Rosso, M. A. Secchi, I. A. Ciampitti

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

Grain sorghum is an important crop in cropping systems worldwide. Many different genetic lines are tolerant to post-flowering heat and drought stress because they express the “stay-green” trait which causes a delay in senescence patterns. Traditional methods of senescence identification are labor-intensive and time consuming. However, remote sensing is a proposed method of identifying sorghum senescence. A study using small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) as a remote sensing platform was conducted in Concordia, KS. Twenty sorghum varieties with 3 replications were sown in a random­ized block design. The aircraft used was a DJI S-1000 equipped with a MicaSense RedEdge 3 …