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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Crop Production Systems Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #341469
Title: UAV low-altitude remote sensing for precision weed management

Author
item Huang, Yanbo
item Reddy, Krishna
item Fletcher, Reginald
item PENNINGTON, DEAN - Yazoo Mississippi Water Management District

Submitted to: Weed Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/13/2017
Publication Date: 2/1/2018
Citation: Huang, Y., Reddy, K.N., Fletcher, R.S., Pennington, D. 2018. UAV low-altitude remote sensing for precision weed management. Weed Technology. 32:2-6.

Interpretive Summary: Precision weed management is an innovated management scheme that handles the variability of weed infestation and herbicide damage within crop fields. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an unique platform for developing crop remote sensing systems for weed identification, crop herbicide damage assessment and differentiation of herbicide-resistant weeds in crop fields. Scientists in USDA-ARS Crop Production Systems Research Unit at Stoneville, Mississippi have developed UAV remote sensing systems that demonstrated their advantages over satellite, manned aircraft and ground-based systems for identifying weeds and hence for other applications in precision weed management. We further collaborated with a former scientist in Yazoo Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management District in developing multirotor and fixed-wing UAV systems for low-altitude remote sensing of crop injury from dicamba sprays in a soybean field. This study indicated that UAV-based low-altitude remote sensing technology is effective for precision weed management and the technology can be used to characterize crop injury from dicamba sprays in soybean field with images acquired from UAVs and has a great potential to map herbicide-resistant weeds in crop fields.

Technical Abstract: Precision weed management, an application of precision agriculture, accounts for within-field variability of weed infestation and herbicide damage. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide a unique platform for remote sensing of field crops. They are more efficient and flexible than manned agricultural airplanes in acquiring high-resolution images at low altitudes and low speed. UAVs are more universal than agricultural aircraft since the latter are used only in specific regions. We have developed and used UAV systems for Red-Green-Blue (RGB) digital imaging to identify weeds in the field and determine crop injury from dicamba at different doses. This study presents remote sensing technologies for weed management and focus on development and application of UAV-based low-altitude remote sensing technology for precision weed management. This study futher discusses the potential application of UAV-based plant sensing systems for mapping the distributions of glyphosate-resistant and glyphosate-suseptible weeds in crop fields.