Drones take farming to new heights

High above the fields of the Morven Sustainability Lab, drones equipped with heat and light sensors are changing what it means to farm smarter.

This month, researchers and students from the University of Virginia, NASA and the University of Buffalo tested drone technology by flying more than 100 feet above crops to measure plant health at UVA’s 2,900-acre research facility. 

“The goal of the project was to improve our ability to predict plant stress and productivity, with the eventual goal of helping farmers both grow better crops, faster and cheaper,” Manuel Lerdau, a UVA professor of environmental sciences and Morven’s research, said. 

“This is what’s called ‘precision agriculture,’ trying to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture by giving the farmers much more information about how plants are working.”

The partnership draws on expertise from the three institutions. University of Buffalo researchers developed a new method for guiding drones over agricultural areas to measure plant stress and productivity, while NASA researchers brought their expertise in remote sensing.

The Decarbonization Academy supports participating students and expands opportunities for hands-on learning. (Contributed photos)

The team from UVA focused on prepping the site for the research and conducted fieldwork, flying drones for five days to get a sense of what is growing at Morven.

Sensors on the drone can measure at very high resolution, with a one-nanometer bandwidth, all of the light reflecting off the plants. Other sensors measure temperature, plant height, species and how well they’re doing in terms of photosynthesis and water. 

With this information, farmers will be able to detect drought, insect attacks or diseases long before the human eye and across much bigger spatial scales than a person can search. Early and expanded detection will allow farmers to add water or treat pests sooner and with greater precision, benefiting both plants and the environment.

Morven supported Lerdau and second-year doctoral student Tierney Cantwell for this work. Undergraduate students Emma Ellsworth, Emeline Daley, Emily Snellings and Cole Sutter participated in the research this summer through the Decarbonization Academy, a paid UVA Sustainability summer internship.

“What we saw this summer was a pretty amazing example of inter-unit collaboration,” Cantwell said. “From UVA, we had the environmental science department, the Decarbonization Academy run by UVA Facilities and Morven Sustainability Lab all working together.”

This technology could help farmers detect droughts and other crop issues sooner. (Contributed video and photo)

To expand access to remote-sensing science beyond professional scientists, UVA and NASA have collaborated over the last seven years to develop a low-cost, lightweight, remote-sensing instrument that can be built for approximately $200. It is known as the Science and Technology Education for Land/Life Assessment, or STELLA.

In addition to working on this summer’s research, Ellsworth and Daley created an instructional video on how to use STELLA.

Earlier in the summer, students canvassed the fields of Morven, recording the plant life they found to compare their findings with later drone readings. Then they used the handheld STELLA device to create another reading of the land.