Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 7620 IREC Farmers' Newsletter No. 195 ­ – Rice R&D 2016 John Hornbuckle, James Brinkhoff and Carlos Ballester Centre for Regional and Rural Futures, Deakin University, Griffith NSW Thane Pringle Independent Precision Ag, Yenda T HE use of drones around the world has increased significantly in the past 12– 18 months. Major advances in drone technology are being rapidly commercialised and drones are becoming more common. Indeed, Apple stores now offer the range of DJI Phantom drones, which can be purchased alongside your next iPhone! Deakin University’s Centre for Regional and Rural Futures (CeRRF) has been investigating the use of these technologies in rice production systems for monitoring crop performance, with a view for using this technology to improve decisions on nitrogen use, water management and irrigation layouts. Easy to use? You bet! A DJI Inspire drone, shown in Figure 1, is kitted out with its standard true-colour camera at the front, and additional multi- spectral and thermal cameras attached. Multi-spectral cameras for use on drones are rapidly decreasing in price, with options such as the Micasense Sequoia (www.micasense.com) now under the $2500 mark. While much can be done with a standard camera for investigating variability, crop impacts are best picked up with a multi-spectral camera, which can collect data such as normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI). Cameras, such as the Micasense Sequoia, also can collect normalised difference red edge (NDRE) data, which have been shown to be particularly useful in monitoring nitrogen in rice and other crops, when compared with standard NDVI images. Using drones has become extremely easy with tablet and phone-based apps such as The widespread use and adoption of drones for many applications is driving innovation, allowing the collection of high resolution agricultural data to enhance farm management decisions. QUICK TAKE l Low-cost drone-based platforms have taken off worldwide with global drone companies now releasing drones suited to agricultural monitoring with sub-$2000 price tags, for example the DJI Phantom 4. l Software providers, such as Drone Deploy and Pix4D, have developed apps that allow fully automated flights to collect very high resolution aerial data (sub-5 cm pixels) and process this data in the cloud. l Specialised agricultural start- up companies provide multi- spectral and thermal camera add-ons for these drone platforms, further extending the usefulness of such aerial monitoring devices, particularly for looking at variability issues associated with crop water and nitrogen. l Collecting data is as simple as tracing out the paddock boundaries with apps such as Drone Deploy. The app then takes control of the drone and it flies over the indicated field collecting multiple images. NEW TOOLS FOR MEASURING AND MANAGING VARIABILITY