Irrigation Scheduling of Grapevines
Remote Sensing
Remote sensing uses satellites and drones to monitor crops from above, providing data to manage irrigation by assessing plant health, soil moisture, and water use, enabling precision application, water savings, and better water governance for sustainable agriculture, by analyzing spectral signals and thermal data to detect stress and optimize irrigation scheduling.
Types of Remote Sensor Data
Remote sensing for irrigation uses optical data (Visible, NIR, SWIR, Thermal IR for plant health/stress), microwave data (soil moisture), and thermal data (crop temperature/stress), gathered from satellites and drones, to assess evapotranspiration, soil moisture, and crop water needs for efficient water management.
Remote Sensing Platforms
For vineyards, satellites offer broad area monitoring (large scale) with frequent free data (temporal resolution) but lack detail (coarse spatial resolution). At the same time, UAVs provide ultra-detailed, real-time, on-demand imagery (high spatial resolution, multi-angle), well-suited for individual vines/zones, but cover smaller areas per flight, and both use multi-spectral/thermal sensors for water stress/irrigation management via indices such as NDVI. UAVs overcome satellite cloud issues and inter-row interference (pixel contamination) for precise irrigation, while satellites excel at regional overviews, often integrating both for compre-hensive management. The multispectral unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems, in particular, have recently emerged as a valuable source of high-spatial-resolution remote sensing data, offering substantial benefits in terms of cost and adaptability and achieving centimeter-scale spatial resolution.
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