In recent years, agriculture has witnessed a transformative shift with the use of cutting-edge technology to optimise crop health and productivity. With satellite technology and data analytics, farmers can assess and improve crop health with unparalleled precision and efficiency.
One of the groundbreaking applications of satellite technology is the generation of macronutrient analysis maps, which provide invaluable insights into the nutritional status of crops, including nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and moisture levels. Of the many nutrients vital to plant growth, NPK is the backbone of plant nutrition. Optimising the level of nutrients, including the accurate acquisition of NPK, plays an indispensable role in improving crop yields, growth, and quality.
Traditionally, assessing crop health and nutrient levels is a labour-intensive and time-consuming process. Farmers would visit their plots and visually monitor their crops, which can spread over hundreds of acres. Leaf or soil samples are then manually collected and sent to nearby laboratories for nutrient measurements, and the results may come back almost three weeks later. By then, the farmer will likely have a sub-optimal harvest as it may be too late to nurse under-fertilised crops back to health.
Precision agriculture
The innovative application of satellite technology holds the promise of revolutionising how crops are cultivated, leading to higher yields, reduced resource usage, and ultimately, a more sustainable food supply.
ST Engineering Geo-Insights taps emerging new space technology to offer seasonal monitoring to reveal crop health data through its AgXellence service. Using satellites to capture high-resolution images of agricultural landscapes allows for detailed analysis of crop health indicators, such as chlorophyll content, leaf moisture levels, and canopy density.
The analysis of these images produces macronutrient analysis maps, which provide invaluable insights into the nutritional status of crops, including levels of NPK and moisture levels—with less than 10% error rates.
The AgXellence Irrigation Insights Service visualises the moisture distribution across the plantation for better irrigation practices, and the AgXellence Plant Health Insights Service can evaluate the plantation’s health condition every five days to identify early signs of potential infestation, diseases, and areas of risk.
The insights offered include fertiliser recommendation, as the map can visualise the amount of fertiliser to be applied to the entire plantation, and identify areas of saturation and drought to achieve homogeneity in nutrient distribution.
As farmers can identify areas of nutrient deficiency or stress, they can take targeted interventions to optimise crop health and productivity. With informed decisions about fertiliser application, irrigation management, and other agricultural practices, farmers can optimise yields while minimising resource inputs and environmental impacts.
The macronutrient analysis of crop health and performance using satellite technology can be done remotely and as frequently as every five days. Through this, farmers can now assess and improve crop health up to four times as quickly.
Getting to the heart of what farmers need
AgXellence was born out of our deep engagement with cotton plantation owners in Latin America and Asia.
We understood that farmers wanted tailored solutions that meet their specific needs instead of cookie-cutter tools and services. The company sought to address a critical pain point: the inefficient distribution of fertiliser that causes uneven yield across large swathes of land.
To develop AgXellence, ST Engineering Geo-Insights worked with a cotton farmer in Brazil to generate a macronutrient analysis map using satellite technology to show NPK levels. The goal was to use satellite-based crop health monitoring to quickly visualise the overall health of the entire plantation and identify areas of underperformance to deploy resources based on need.
Using high-resolution imagery of the Earth’s surface, AgXellence gets a comprehensive view of a plantation’s health and macronutrient status, without farmers needing to spend weeks on manual inspection.
With AgXellence, ST Engineering Geo-Insights now actively monitors 15,000 hectares of plantations and continuously uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques on over six years of collected data to refine the technology.
Since then, the team has fostered strong partnerships with global operators, agronomists and advisors across Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and in the process can marry new scientific knowledge with operational expertise to deliver actionable insights for farmers everywhere. In the pipeline is a cloud-based platform as AgXellence’s capabilities continue to evolve.
The integration of satellite technology into crop health analysis and management represents a transformative advancement in modern agriculture. In the future of agriculture, satellite technology will continue to play a key part in more innovative, precise and data-driven agricultural practices.
The power of the geospatial solutions by ST Engineering Geo-Insights extends beyond the agriculture sectors, tapping emerging space technologies that support informed decision-making for customers in the maritime, insurance, energy, infrastructure and environmental sustainability sectors.
For the maritime industry, the ST Engineering KnOcean Platform monitors suspicious vessel activities in near real-time, detecting dark vessels, vessels broadcasting inconsistent automatic identification system (AIS) information, vessels anchored alongside, and loitering vessels.
Users of the Fire Hotspot Monitoring Dashboard will receive daily detection and tracking of forest fire incidents, including automated reporting of location, duration of fire incident, burned area extent, and type of vegetation cover burned.
In summary, satellite technology represents a transformative advancement, providing various sectors with valuable insights that drive innovation and enable better, faster, and more informed decisions.
Find out more: https://www.stengg.com/en/smart-city/satellite-solutions/satellite-imagery-and-geospatial-solutions
