Planning your Stand Count before heading to the field is crucial to successful operations and collecting data efficiently and effectively throughout the season.
Overview
Stand Count mission planning allows you to quickly scan your field to capture the data needed for stand counts. Use this tool to evaluate crop emergence in minutes and make replant or early-season decisions faster.
How to set up a Stand Count mission
Follow these steps to customize your mission plan based on crop type, field area and row spacing.
Open your project in DroneDeploy. Navigate to the map or 3D model you want to capture.
Select the Stand Count template. Click New Project and select Stand Count from the Agriculture templates.
Configure mission settings. Set your parameters for crop type, flight path and row spacing.
Enable Terrain Awareness. Toggle Terrain Awareness to ensure a consistent capture height above the crop canopy.
Flight Plan Settings:
- Crop Type - Select Corn or Soy
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Crop Attributes:
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Gap Threshold: For the majority of the time, 12 will work. Populations <26K and >40K will need to
be modified. Measure the distance between three plants to estimate the setting for
these fields. (move the slider or type in the box)
Row Spacing: Set row spacing of the field (move the slider or type in the box)
Row Ratio Analysis (M/F): Enter ratio as needed to discount any male plants in the Stand
Count
-
Gap Threshold: For the majority of the time, 12 will work. Populations <26K and >40K will need to
- Area per Image - Select how frequently an image should be taken, determining how densely you'll sample your field.
- Travel Altitude - Select a higher altitude used to commute to the start of the capture area before reducing altitude.
- Capture Altitude - The altitude at the time of image capture. The blue icon controls Terrain Awareness functionality and contours the terrain for a steady above ground level (AGL) throughout the flight. We recommend that you review the terrain data before every flight. Please take a look at the chart for more information.
- Airspace & LAANC - A built-in way to secure LAANC approvals if needed. For more information, check out this article.
Crop Attributes:
- Gap Threshold - The maximum allowed spacing between plants before a gap is flagged.
- Row Spacing - The expected distance between rows.
- Row Ratio Analysis - The pattern for Male / Female rows using Stand Assessment on a seed production field.
Offline Flight:
If you know you need to fly offline, go to Advanced settings and select "Make Available Offline" to download the map tiles for offline use. After capturing offline, connect to the internet to upload the offline data. Refrain from signing out between capture and upload, or you may lose data.
Best Practices
- Capturing around 50 photos or fewer is ideal. DJI limits us to 99 waypoints (photos) per flight.
- An online flight is required for Terrain Awareness to be enabled.
- The green dot on the flight plan indicates where an image will be taken
- The flight boundary area doesn't have to be the same as the field boundary to avoid capturing images in headland areas
- Make sure all other apps are closed when using DroneDeploy
- Plan to fly parallel (aligned and in the same direction) as the planted rows, not perpendicular (crossing).
Limitations
Stand Count missions should be conducted with flight plans requiring only a single battery at a time.
If you are flying a large area, plan for multiple missions to maintain battery efficiency.
Circular fields are not supported for Stand Count as the crops have to be planted in straight rows.
FAQs
Q: Does Stand Count work without internet?
A: Yes — the solution works offline to provide results while you are in the field.
Q: I don't see the Stand Count Flight option. What do I do?
A: Please ensure your industry is set to 'Agriculture' in your drone deployment preferences.
Q: What drones are supported?
A: You can use a standard RGB camera drone for automated stand counts.
Q: When can I start counting? A: DroneDeploy conducts automated stand counts as early as the VE (emergence) growth stage.
V2.2