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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Geneva, New York » Grape Genetics Research Unit (GGRU) » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #383999
Research Project: Grapevine Genetics, Genomics and Molecular Breeding for Disease Resistance, Abiotic Stress Tolerance, and Improved Fruit Quality

Location: Grape Genetics Research Unit (GGRU)

Title: QScout: A QGIS Plugin Tool Suite for Georeferencing and Analysis of Field Scouted and Remote Sensing Data

Author
item Evans, Joshua
item ROMERO GALVAN, FERNANDO - Cornell University
item Cadle-Davidson, Lance
item GOLD, KAITLIN - Cornell University

Submitted to: The Plant Phenome Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/2/2021
Publication Date: 2/1/2022
Citation: Evans, J.R., Romero Galvan, F.E., Cadle Davidson, L.E., Gold, K.M. 2022. QScout: A QGIS plugin tool suite for georeferencing and analysis of field scouted and remote sensing data. The Plant Phenome Journal. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppj2.20031.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppj2.20031

Interpretive Summary: Field scouting has long been used in plant sciences to collect data on individual plants. Field imaging is becoming more common in agriculture, including from drones or satellites. However, linking scouting data to field images is complicated and requires linking the observations to locations in a Geographic Information System (GIS). Here, we present the QScout tool suite for connecting scouting data with images in QGIS, an open source GIS program. After making these data connections, QScout has several useful applications, such as averaging nearby data or identifying locations that need to be scouted. Its user-friendly interface allows beginners to easily and effectively improve data organization, analysis, and actionable outcomes. QScout is publicly available at https://github.com/GoldLabGrapeSPEC/QScout.

Technical Abstract: Field scouting is an important part of many research methodologies in plant pathology and plant phenomics. However, linking scouting data to field imagery is often hampered by the time-consuming task of georeferencing with a Geographic Information System (GIS), posing a barrier to entry for novice users. Here, we present the QScout tool suite for integrating remote sensing imagery and raster data with field scouting data in QGIS, an open source GIS. The central features of QScout are Drop Pins and Locate Pins plugins to easily link scouted data to remote sensing imagery. QScout also includes Value Grabber and Grid Aggregator plugins, which transfer raster data into pins and aggregate data from pins into a grid respectively. The final tools, Drop, Grab, and Aggregate and Locate, Grab, and Aggregate, are plugins that combine subsets of the four core plugins. The interface allows novice GIS users to effectively make use of field scouted observations with remote imagery and can improve data organization, analysis, and identification of locations of interest for further scouting or targeted management. QScout is publicly available as a GitHub repository (https://github.com/GoldLabGrapeSPEC/QScout).