Skip to main content
Ingenium Logo

You are leaving IngeniumCanada.org

✖


This link leads to an external website that Ingenium does not control. Please read the third-party’s privacy policies before entering personal information or conducting a transaction on their site.

Have questions? Review our Privacy Statement

Vous quittez IngeniumCanada.org

✖


Ce lien mène à un site Web externe qu'Ingenium ne contrôle pas. Veuillez lire les politiques de confidentialité des tiers avant de partager des renseignements personnels ou d'effectuer une transaction sur leur site.

Questions? Consultez notre Énoncé de confidentialité

Ingenium The Channel

Langue

  • Français
Search Toggle

Menu des liens rapides

  • Ingenium Locations
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Join
Menu

Main Navigation

  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners

GreenCropTracker: Deriving crop information from digital photography

This article was originally written and submitted as part of a Canada 150 Project, the Innovation Storybook, to crowdsource stories of Canadian innovation with partners across Canada. The content has since been migrated to Ingenium’s Channel, a digital hub featuring curated content related to science, technology and innovation.

Share
May 25, 2016
Categories
Agriculture
Media
Article
Profile picture for user Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
By: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Dr. Elizabeth Pattey and Dr. Jiangui Liu
Dr. Elizabeth Pattey and Dr. Jiangui Liu

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada scientists have developed a tool to help create better models for simulating crop growth and obtaining physical descriptors of agricultural crops. GreenCropTracker is a software tool that can be used to derive crop information from a simple digital photo taken over a crop canopy in agricultural fields. The resulting model predictions help growers understand what happens in the field so they can manage production more efficiently.

Drs. Elizabeth Pattey and Jiangui Liu at the Ottawa Research and Development Centre thought that a time series of photos taken over a crop canopy for documenting the growth advancement would contain quantitative information that could be evaluated. They developed a histogram-based threshold method to differentiate gaps from plant tissues and then incorporated this image analysis method into GreenCropTracker.

GreenCropTracker can be used to study crop production in experimental plots and fields, to evaluate the impact of climate variation on crops and to provide ground data for deriving crop descriptors from remote sensing data. It also verifies the output of crop growth models and integrates surface conditions with regional meteorological models. The software, which has already been tested over corn, wheat, and soybean crops, is used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and has been requested by nearly 50 countries because it provides fast and inexpensive crop information.

Software distribution site: http://www.flintbox.com/public/project/5470/

Tags
Innovation Storybook
Author(s)
Profile picture for user Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

We work with farmers and food producers to support the growth and development of the agriculture and agri-food sector. Our policies, programs, research and technology help them succeed in Canadian and global markets.

http://www.agr.gc.ca/

Related Stories

A map of the cranberry bog of Les Producteurs de Québec Limitée of Lemieux, Québec. Luc Bureau, “Un exemple d’adaptation de l’agriculture à des conditions écologiques en apparence hostiles: L’Atocatière de Lemieux,” Cahiers de géographie du Québec, December 1970, 389.

“A sea serpent without affidavit, is like roast turkey without cranberry sauce;” Or, how the Larocque family created the first cranberry bog in Québec, part 3

Two images spliced: On the left, different plant-based milk alternatives, on the right, an overhead view of the Spirit rover.

2 things - and more! - you should know about plant-based milk alternatives and weather on Mars

Some of the buildings on the cranberry bog operated by Les Producteurs de Québec Limitée of Lemieux, Québec. Pierre-Arthur Dorion. “La plus importante plantation d’atocas au pays.” Le Bulletin des agriculteurs, July 1955, 11.

“A sea serpent without affidavit, is like roast turkey without cranberry sauce;” Or, how the Larocque family created the first cranberry bog in Québec, part 2

Charles Larocque, manager of Les Producteurs de Québec Limitée of Lemieux, Québec, showing how to pick up cranberries, on the left, as well as fallen fruits floating in water. Arthur Prévost, « À Lemieux, au Québec, prospère la culture des ‘juteux atacas.’ » Photo-Journal, 23 July 1953, 33.

“A sea serpent without affidavit, is like roast turkey without cranberry sauce;” Or, how the Larocque family created the first cranberry bog in Québec, part 1

Left to right: solar panels placed high above low-lying green farm crops in a field; bubbles of various sizes rising in a yellow-green medium; and two tarantula feet magnified 40 times appear orange in colour against a navy-blue background.

3 Things you should know about using the same farmland for producing crops AND solar energy, museum conservators’ superhuman “vision,” and making french fries in space

Two images, spliced. On the left: Aerial photograph of two rows of six large circular nets floating on water and attached by ropes to a boat. On the right: The rings of Saturn slice horizontally, almost edge-on, through the middle of the image. A variety of Saturnian moons of varying apparent sizes are in the image ranging from very small, background moons to larger and closer moons.

2 Things you should know about an integrated aquaculture system and discovering more of Saturn's moons

Spliced image, from left to right: a seismometer on mars, a heap of red rhubarb stalks with green leaves, a copper roof of the Canaian Parliament

3 Things you should know about marsquakes, the value of urine, and the chemistry of rhubarb

A dirty glass slide of a stromatolite with a dirty cotton swab at the bottom; a close-up on a bee with a green head and thorax on a yellow flower; a false colour 3D view of the surface of Venus showing volcanoes and lava flowing towards the foreground.

3 Things you should know about how native bees are important pollinators, how saliva is used to clean artifacts, and active volcanism on Venus

Ahh, ice cream, the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. I do wonder if this young boy knew he was actually eating mellorine. Anon., “De la crème glacée synthétique.” Photo-Journal, 16 April 1953, 3.

Do they or do they not buy some? Only their grocer knows for sure: A brief look at a lower-cost imitation of ice cream sometimes known as mellorine

A spliced photo, from left to right: Shaun the Sheep in front of a model of ESA’s European Service Module, a top view into a red bucket containing thousands of light-brown, rod-shaped pellets, and a toddler wearing a wool hat and wool sweater holds a grownup’s finger.

3 things you should know about why wool keeps us warm, and about its surprising uses in the garden and in space.

A large impact crater viewed from the rim, a woodern spoon full of small yellow grains, a close up of a forearm being tattooed.

3 things you should know about the untapped potential of millet, the permanence of tattoos, and asteroid airbursts

A promoter of Sure Food, the food chemist James Pearson (right), at the facility of Wentworth Canning Company Limited of Hamilton, Ontario. Anon., “La viande, synthétique, produit canadien, pourrait sauver de la famine les peuples affamés d’Europe.” Photo-Journal, 5 February 1948, 3.

“It smells like meat. It even looks like meat.” The long forgotten tale of a synthetic meat / meat substitute / meat analogue / meat alternative / imitation meat sometimes called Sure Food

Footer

About The Channel

The Channel

Contact Us

Ingenium
P.O. Box 9724, Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 5A3
Canada

613-991-3044
1-866-442-4416
contact@IngeniumCanada.org
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Channel

    • Channel Home
    • About the Channel
    • Content Partners
  • Visit

    • Online Resources for Science at Home
    • Canada Agriculture and Food Museum
    • Canada Aviation and Space Museum
    • Canada Science and Technology Museum
    • Ingenium Centre
  • Ingenium

    • Ingenium Home
    • About Ingenium
    • The Foundation
  • For Media

    • Newsroom
    • Awards

Connect with us

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest Ingenium news straight to your inbox!

Sign Up

Legal Bits

Ingenium Privacy Statement

© 2023 Ingenium

Symbol of the Government of Canada
  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners