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Lincoln, NE | Let me be clear, I don't pretend to be a expert in either of these two disciplines.
The following are my OPINIONS.
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NDVI and Thermal are two different tools.
The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is an index of plant “greenness” or photosynthetic activity,
To me( in many ways), NDVI show what IS (now). Not what is about to happen.
In many ways our eyes see the RESULTS of stress after it's too late.
Thermal, on the other hand, measures temperature.
In theory, thermal can show the on-set of stress before your eyes see it. It may allow you to be more proactive in stopping yield loss IF you can mitigate the continued stress.
"Time".....the duration of stress... is usually proportional to net yield loss.
When stress manifests itself > stoma close > transpiration decreases > plant temperatures rise.
Thermal applications in agriculture are relatively new compared to NDVI.
There is A LOT of work to be done on thermal. Don't consider it the magic bullet. We are not there yet.
My objective is to TEST thermal and ask WHY when anomalies appear. It will take plenty of ground-truthing to find many answers.
We (precision Ag) are great at collecting data. But, in general, we are not so good at asking WHY when we look at a NDVI or yield map.
I think we will learn a lot this growing season with thermal. If we continually ask WHY.
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DJI XT coming for Inspire-1
