Imagery can be used for a variety of applications that can lead to improved decision-making in the vineyard:

  • A time series of data can reveal vineyard changes or patterns that would not be apparent in a single image. It is the detection of temporal changes that many growers have found to be one of the most beneficial aspects of imagery
  • Determination of vineyard characteristics such as row length, number of rows, area of blocks (or other regions of interest), distance between points of interest
  •  Planning locations for scouting and sampling activities
  •  Determination of elevation information – this would be useful for wind machine site selection and other drainage and replanting decisions


Some features of our vineyard imagery products:

Geo-referenced

All imagery and derived products will be provided in a geo-referenced format, meaning that real-world spatial coordinates have been applied to the data. For growers that have utilized GPS systems for precision viticulture management, geo-referenced imagery can be easily related to this existing GPS-derived vineyard spatial information.

 

Multiple Imagery Sources

Environmental Geosolutions does not have commitments to use a specific type of image data, unlike many companies that have restrictive data-use agreements in place. Because of this, we can provide a comprehensive assessment of the optimal data source for a specific project. This assessment will be based on years of experience in planning projects for agricultural applications. 

Certain projects may be best served through the acquisition of aerial photography, while high-resolution satellite imagery is also a commonly-used data source. When recommending the data type to use for a given project, we consider a variety of factors including:

  • grower’s flexibility with regards to image acquisition dates
  • local meteorological conditions
  • level of spatial detail requested by grower
  • distribution and concentration of vineyards in the area

Visible and Infrared Imagery

Visible and infrared data is normally used for agricultural studies where vegetation is the principal target; Environmental Geosolutions will provide both visible and infrared imagery to growers, as they are both rich in information content with regards to vineyard applications:

Visible – This imagery is what the human eye would see from above. Many vineyard managers like to work with visible imagery as it provides a context that they can easily relate to.  Click here  to see a larger version of the visible image shown below.



Infrared - because infrared wavelengths are sensitive to healthy vegetation, infrared images are used to assess information about vine growth. Click here to see a larger version of the infrared image shown below.

 

Image Calibration

Existing customers of image-based mapping services should not feel that they are stuck with a certain imagery provider because of calibration issues comparing data from different imagery sources. For a number of reasons, vineyards may have reason to acquire image data from different providers of imagery. Because of variations in camera and sensor design, it is necessary to calibrate imagery acquired from different sources to ensure that the measured data is comparable between image types.

Environmental Geosolutions has the technical expertise to perform these procedures so that vineyard managers can be confident that their datasets are comparable and reliable.