Remote Sensing and Crop Phenology

What are other types remote sensing?

The graph below shows some common sensors and the images produced by these sensors. These sensors can receive much broader ranges of EM waves.

Top row: 1. Digital Camera 2. LiDar 3. Drone 4. Digital Camera 5. Satellite; Bottom row: A. PhenoCam Image B. LiDar Image C. Aerial Photo D. Camera Image E. Satellite Image

What is Phenology?

The textbook definition of phenology goes as: "Phenology is the study of timing of biological events and their relationship to seasonal climatic changes" -US/IBP Phenology Committee (1972)

You can think of phenology as the color change of the plants. Take a look at the graph below which is showing the color change of soybeans from July to November.

The growing cycle of soybeans. The pictures were taken in July (upper left), August (upper right), September(lower right), and November(lower left)

Why study crop phenology?

Monitoring crop phenology has many implications: things like understanding the growing cycle of the crops, predicting the yield of the crops over large areas

What information we can get from studying Phenology?

We can get key phenological stages of the crops through studying crop phenology

How does remote sensing improve the efficiency of studying phenology?

Traditional phenology studies rely on field observation, however, the involvement of remote sensing can observe the phenology of crops in large areas and thus making the observation more efficient

Top row: 1. Digital Camera 2. LiDar 3. Drone 4. Digital Camera 5. Satellite; Bottom row: A. PhenoCam Image B. LiDar Image C. Aerial Photo D. Camera Image E. Satellite Image

The growing cycle of soybeans. The pictures were taken in July (upper left), August (upper right), September(lower right), and November(lower left)