In this fifth episode of our series of CAPTE videos, Joss Gillet (R&D Director at Hiphen) asks Benoît De Solan (CAPTE Team Manager, Arvalis) about plant phenotyping acquisition systems. They discuss what makes DJI UAV (drone) equipment well suited for crop experiments and monitoring.

This is particularly topical as DJI unveiled today during the Airworks 2019 event the launch of its P4 Multispectral drone developed specifically for precision agriculture applications. An exciting news which will continue to democratize the use of remote sensing technology for crop management. It is maybe the first time we witness a global drone manufacturer bringing forward their ability to compute NDVI - a basic vegetation index Hiphen and its partners and clients have been manipulating for years.

Widely used devices

As such, Benoit De Solan explains that drones such as the DJI Mavic 2 Pro or Matrice 200/210 series are now widely used in the agricultural sectors mainly because of their high-throughput performance and value-for-money. Drones are indeed transforming plant phenotyping applications, allowing field operators to collect in a few UAV flights what used to take months to measure manually - something we discuss in more depth in this video blog.

The Mavic 2 Pro is indeed an affordable high-throughput acquisition system that was not initially made for our plant phenotyping activities, but instead aimed more at movie making activities. Yet the high quality data delivered by such device is well suited for our smart farming needs, and given the latest DJI annoucements in this field, we can expect a rapid growth in the use of drones for agtech use cases.

You can read more on DJI website about other drone applications such as crop consulting, irrigation management, crop inspection or spraying  - with the Agras T16 unveiled at Airworks 2019 and made specifically for spraying and to "revolutionize the way farmers work".

We can help you in your project

At Hiphen and CAPTE, we have gathered an extensive experience in using drones for precision agriculture applications, and we would be delighted to tell you more about whether you should in-house or outsource such skills, which UAV equipment and sensors to select, how to best prepare your UAV flight plans and what type of traits you can expect in return. All of these are questions that our clients are now very familiar with and we are looking forward to discussing these topics with you.

As always, feel free to reach out to us at contact@hiphen-plant.com.