Traditional sensing technologies in citrus production for pest and disease detection and field phenotyping rely on manual sampling, which is time consuming and labor intensive. Since availability of personnel trained for field scouting is a major problem, small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with various sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) can simplify the surveying procedure, decrease data collection time and reduce cost.
UAVs equipped with RGB and multispectral sensors have recently become flexible and cost-effective solutions for rapid, precise and non-destructive field scouting. Growers are typically reluctant to adopt new technologies. However, demonstrated ease of use and cost savings can encourage widespread adoption. Precise and early detection of pests and diseases can reduce spray costs, scouting labor costs and possible fruit losses caused by pests and diseases. However, the extent to which this is offset by the increased cost of specialized labor or consultants needed to operate UAVs and interpret information needs to be carefully examined by each operation.
APPLICATIONS USING UAVS AND AI
Novel cloud- and AI-based solutions were recently introduced in citrus to process, analyze and visualize data collected from platforms such as UAVs. One example is the …..
Learn more about the High-Tech Scouting in Citrus Production on the Citrus Industery website.