THE CHALLENGE
The core challenge for cereal growers lies in efficiently managing nitrogen applications to maximize yield while minimizing waste and environmental impact. Traditional methods like manual tiller counts and soil testing are not only time-consuming and labor-intensive but also fail to capture the full picture of field variability due to sparse sampling and delayed results. This often leads to blanket fertilizer applications that overlook differences in soil quality, crop health, and growth stages across the field. While technologies like ground-based sensors and satellite imagery offer partial solutions, they come with limitations such as narrow coverage areas, inconsistent resolution, and sensitivity to cloud cover or lighting conditions. Vegetation indices like NDVI can saturate in dense crops, and red-edge metrics, although more sensitive to biomass, require complex calibration and modeling. From a business standpoint, these inefficiencies translate to higher input costs, missed yield potential, and increased risk of regulatory penalties from nutrient runoff, creating a clear need for a scalable, data-driven approach to precision nitrogen management that is both technically robust and practical for real-world farm operations.
OUR SOLUTION
We offer a scalable and cost-effective way for cereal growers to optimize nitrogen use through automated aerial imaging and real-time analytics. By integrating a computing system into UAVs or farm equipment, the technology captures multispectral images and calculates key vegetation indices like NDVI and NDRE to estimate tiller density using built-in regression models. These insights are instantly translated into site-specific nitrogen recommendations using a smart lookup table, guiding both timing and rate of fertilizer application. This eliminates the need for manual tiller counts and soil tests, which are slow, labor-intensive and prone to error. With proven accuracy and seamless integration into existing farm operations, the system enables more precise input use, reduces labor and fertilizer costs, and helps meet regulatory goals for environmental sustainability, making it a smart investment for modern precision agriculture.
Figure: Using a yardstick to take tiller counts in the field.
Advantages:
- Automates tiller density estimation using high-resolution UAV imagery and embedded analytics
- Delivers site-specific nitrogen recommendations with NDVI and NDRE integration
- Reduces labor, fertilizer costs, and environmental impact
- Seamlessly integrates with precision-ag machinery for scalable deployment
Potential Application:
- Precision nitrogen application
- Automated fertilizer deployment
- Tiller density mapping
- Site-specific nutrient management
