Using Outlander UAS & NDVI to increase profits
A recent study from Australia describes the financial advantage of using NDVI imagery on a 8.15 acre site to determine a differential harvesting program. Briefly, the study stated that normal harvesting resulted in returns (based upon retail bottle price of $19.00) of $544,065. Using NDVI imagery to divide the blocks into high quality ($30.00/bottle) and lower quality sections ($19.00/bottle), then harvesting differentially brought returns totalling $648,675 -- an increase of return of $104,610, or $12,835 an acre! With the cost of the imagery at $10.00 an acre in Australia that was a return on the imagery of 1200% and an increase in revenue for the project of 19% overall.(1)
Problem Identification
Problems causing non-uniformity in a vineyard are quickly recognized and the extent described with an NDVI image. A plan of field examination can be readily developed and implemented to determine if the problems are pest, nutritional, water or disease. If the NDVI image is georeferenced in digital form, it can be loaded on a PDA with GPS to immediately locate the required sample areas.
Practice Improvement
A key objective of vineyard management is to improve the return-on-assets through improving fruit quality (i.e., higher value fruit) while at the same time bringing the vineyard to as close to uniform as possible.
- Sample zones for petiole analysis can be determined from NDVI as petiole pressures match well with NDVI classes.
- Time period comparisons can describe the progress of changes to bring about uniformity and to statistically describe uniformity.
- Differences in vegetation growth on NDVIs help design soils analysis plans for existing and planned vineyards.
- Irrigation sets and block changes are typically the first benefit of NDVI imagery with either savings in water or increases in water distribution efficiency.
