Overview
Plant Health is an insightful tool that displays vegetation data for agricultural, forestry, and ecological users. It applies various vegetative indices to identify plant health and variability over a mapped area, enabling more informed decisions and immediate management.
Availability
The Plant Health Toolbox is available to all paid customers in our Lite, Individual, Advanced, Teams, and Enterprise plans. With the Precision Ag Package, customers will have access to our advanced Plant Health tools that include indices for multispectral captures, particularly for sensors that include Near Infrared (NIR) bands.
How to use Plant Health:
Adjusting how the Plant Health layer is visualized highlights specific areas within your field to help locate patches of healthy and unhealthy plants. Changing the visualization will modify the contrast in plant health depending on your identified threshold. In general, red relates to unhealthy plants, green relates to healthy plants, and yellow relates to moderately healthy plants.
Follow these steps to visualize Plant Health:
Select the 2D Map View.
Click the Plant Health button on the left-hand side panel on the Explore page.
-
Click on the histogram to explore the Plant Health Toolbox.
The panel on the left side becomes populated with an adjustable histogram and other Plant Health options.
Adjust the Plant Health visualization using the sliding bar.
-
Under Filter Type, select the band order based on the bands captured with your camera type.
Each option refers to a captured bands, where R= Red, B= Blue, G= Green, and N= NIR. For standard RGB cameras, selecting RGB is the only appropriate option. For cameras that capture NIR bands, you can select from the given range of filter types.
-
Under Algorithm, select the algorithm appropriate for your camera type.
VARI (the recommended algorithm) is the only appropriate option for standard RGB cameras. NDVI algorithm options are only appropriate if your data was captured with a multispectral camera or a camera that captures NIR bands.
Key Features/Details
Grid and Zone Management
The Grid and Zone tool under Plant Health allows users to create specified management zones from their Plant Health maps. More details are found in our Zone Management article.
The Grid option geographically groups the Plant Health map into larger pixels to help manage the areas with poor plant health that may require more attention.
The Zone option groups the health of the plants by distinguishing areas in three contrasting visual categories, and can be tailored to suit specific thresholds you set in the histogram.
Opacity
The opacity tool changes the transparency of your Plant Health layer to allow you to view your plants or other objects within your map.
Change the opacity with the slider bar, or type in the percentage in the text box.
When and why do we use this tool?
The Plant Health tool is essential for:
Issue Identification and Monitoring: Identify pests, weeds, or nitrogen-deficient areas.
Damage Assessment: Provide insurance payout documentation after a severe weather event.
Management Decisions: Inform fertilizer applications, product validation, and creating management zones.
Visual Record: Maintain a complete visual record of product efficacy throughout the growing season.
Limitations/Considerations
The following are known limitations or considerations when using the Plant Health tool:
Camera Requirements: While the Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI) is appropriate for standard RGB cameras, advanced plant health tools often require multispectral sensors that include Near Infrared (NIR) bands.
FAQs
Q: How do I compare crop health images from an RGB camera to ones taken with an NIR sensor?
A: RGB cameras only determine relative plant health within the same map, requiring consistent light conditions. Modified RGB and multispectral cameras with incident light sensors can be calibrated to compare absolute plant health data over time, regardless of daily changes in sun or cloud cover.
v2.2