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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #62897
Title: ROW-CROP POPULATION SENSOR FOR AGRICULTURAL CROPS

Author
item PLATTNER, CHAD - UNIV OF ILLINOIS
item HUMMEL, JOHN

Submitted to: Agricultural Equipment Technology Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/29/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Plant population is known to be an important factor affecting the yield of agricultural crops. The ability to sense and map the variability of plant parameters, such as plant population, will make it easier to identify the factors which are yield limiting and will assist in prescribing application rates of inputs for site-specific crop management. This paper reports on the development of a sensor that measures corn plant population and collects statistics on plant spacing uniformity, skips, and doubles. Photoelectric sensors are being used to measure the distance between adjacent plants in a row and each plant's stem diameter. An emitter projects a light beam across the row while being traversed down the row. A receiver signals the light and dark intervals as the plants break the light beam. By sensing the ground speed, the distance between the plants is determined. Sensor input data are processed in real-time to provide information on mean plant spacing, skips, and doubles. Plant stem diameter data should be useful in postprocessing to remove erroneous plant counts due to weeds and plant leaves. Preliminary results indicate the sensor can operate at ground speeds up to 3 m/s with plant spacing accuracies of +3%.