2019’s weather has been less than kind to many crops, resulting in a lot of unevenness in crop stage. Some fields appear as if there were different crops in one field, making it difficult for farmers to make the decision when to swath or harvest.

Drone imagery is a valuable tool to help assess the percentage of the field that is ready for harvest.

The most widely used NDVI index is ideally suited for this purpose – the lower the index, the closer that part of the field is to the ripening stage.  Then by ground proofing the different index values (colour zones) in the field image to the crop stage, growers can better quantify the overall maturity and have more confidence in harvest timing.

Wheat Variety plot NDVI image