Emergence assessment of crops and weeds is crucial for crop production, variety evaluation, and plant breeding. It allows for gathering essential information about the state and development of plants, which is indispensable for thriving agriculture and breeding. Pheno-Inspect GmbH offers an innovative, time-efficient, and scalable solution for this task using drone image data and cloud processing. This blog post highlights the importance of emergence assessment for various cultures and the benefits of Pheno-Inspect’s solution.
The Importance of Emergence Assessment in Plant Breeding and Variety Evaluation
Counting individual plants per plot is one of the most time-consuming field assessments, which may have to be carried out several times during the growing season. This assessment allows not only for determining emergence rates, thinning (if performed), and yield estimates but also for evaluating variety traits and breeding progress. In contrast to manual assessment, image-based assessment can simultaneously capture several relevant parameters, such as the number and size of plants, weeds, distribution, gaps, and plant spacing per row or plot. This information is crucial for selecting and further developing plant varieties.
Pheno-Inspect’s Solution: Efficiency and Scalability
Pheno-Inspect GmbH offers an efficient and scalable method for performing emergence assessment based on drone image data. By using drones, large areas can be quickly and accurately captured, significantly reducing the time required for assessment. The collected data are processed in the cloud, enabling fast and flexible evaluation. Pheno-Inspect’s image processing pipelines are not limited to specific cultures, allowing for the same evaluation to be carried out for different cultures. The evaluation can be seamlessly adapted to the particularities of the trial, such as field crops, row crops, weeds, and so on.
Conclusion
Emergence assessment is essential for the successful cultivation of various crops, variety evaluation, and plant breeding. Pheno-Inspect enables an innovative, time-efficient, and scalable solution for this critical task by using drones and cloud processing. Image-based assessment allows for the simultaneous capture of multiple relevant parameters and the flexible adaptation of the evaluation to the respective culture. As a result, farmers, breeders, and researchers can obtain valuable information about their plants and make well-informed decisions for successful harvests, variety selection, and breeding strategies.
