
How to use drones and Machine Learning to improve crop yield in agriculture? - picterra
The use of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) devices is revolutionizing the world of agriculture. When discussing Precision Agriculture and the use of drones in the report: “An eye in the sky for agriculture: the drone revolution” the Food and Agriculture Organisation writes “In the current milieu, use of sustainable information and communication technology in agriculture is not an option. It is a necessity.”<p>According to a study by Munich Reinsurance American Inc., almost three in four U.S. farmers are “currently using or considering adopting drone technology to assess, monitor and manage their farms”.<p>Jason Dunn, Strategic Products Expert from Munich Reinsurance American Inc. said: “Whether a farm has less than 100 or more than 5,000 acres, drones can be the eyes and ears for farmers that want to efficiently and cost effectively monitor and manage crops, livestock and soil conditions.”<p>One of our clients, an arabica grower in Brazil, uses the Picterra platform to detect and monitor his coffee crops. Using a drone, he produced detailed imagery covering 8 hectares of fields, at a high resolution of 5cm. He then created a personalized detector to automatically detect the coffee crops within his fields. In utilizing the detector, he was able to arrive at an estimation of harvest yield, which proved much more accurate than previous manual counting methods, as he knew the exact number and placement of crops. Later in the season, the grower identified the least productive areas of these fields by comparing the number of plants in each area. With such analysis, he was able to focus on zones of the field that needed particular attention. Moreover, he now uses far lower levels of pesticide overall. The final result is an increase in his crop yields by 10%.<p>You can read the whole story and a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a custom machine learning detector here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;30THDC4<p>I&#x27;ll be happy to answer your questions!
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paulduperrex
Thanks, it is super interesting!

