Dear UAV fellows,
now that I have a drone with RGB and NGB cameras onboard, Pixhawk working well (except airspeed sensor), automatic triggering of both cameras at the same time (sync), Photoscan Pro to deliver orthomosaic/DEM pretty easy and fast, I can focus on the applications. I've selected vineyards and wine makers and surprisingly I could not find any straightforward way how I can sell my product. So let's find out if something interesting comes out of the discussion here. If you have your own experience in this area, please share it here.
I have access to a local wine grower here in Slovakia. I want to use this opportunity to do my own research and share the results and observations here. I intend to go out and map the vineyard (30ha) frequently according to the weather. The grower has several types of grapes and the main purpose would be to find out if NDVI or other VI can be used to monitor the plant stress and the reason why it occurs. I've included some figures from the book Remote Sensing of Vegetation 2010 that could be a good starting point. I realize this could be a long way to find out the simple facts that could help the growers and that the research is ongoing already elsewhere. First I have to find some source of funding to do this long-term research..
Replies
Hi Michal,
While we don't have any specific experience in viticulture right now, although as soon as we get a chance we are headed to the Western Slope of Colorado to work with a few vineyards, I think the lessons we learned with row crops as far as turning UAV images into a product will apply to you as well. First, I would fly as many vineyards and sit down with as many viticulturists as possible and learn everything you can about growing grapes. Second, I would identify the costliest inputs in grape production and see if your imagery can address any of these. Finally, I would select a number of farms to serve as pilot customers and, with their guidance, develop a value proposition that will help you price your product. If you determine that your imagery can identify a pest that can be addressed through spot application of herbicide that is found only on a certain chardonnay variety in a certain climate zone, then that becomes the seed of your business and you can market yourself specifically to those growers.
We followed an identical process for row crops and determined specific value propositions in weed identification and, more recently, fertilizer prescription and early yield estimates. I'm certain that many other applications exist for our imagery, but quantifying input savings and increased yields for specific use cases will make the sales process much easier. The idea is that we turn a our toy into a farmer's tool.
With regards to the differences between NDVI and DVI imagery I previously wrote about, it has become abundantly clear that for our collection techniques and application DVI images are far superior. I will try to post an update today showing some more ground truthing, but we have become very confident at this point that the DVI images we collect correlate well with the conditions on the ground.
Best,
Daniel
Hi Tim,
That would be great. We've focused our efforts on developing a product honed for quarter section row crops, but see a lot of potential in viticulture and would love to work with an experimental farm. I'm not totally sure a fixed wing is the best platform for vineyards (I don't know much about grapes, but the ones I've visited as a tourist were generally less than 10 acres), but we definitely could apply everything we've learned about image collection and processing to a new problem. We'll also be out in the San Francisco area in early August so the timing could work out really well. If it's easier, my email is daniel at agribotix dot com. I look forward to connecting.
Thanks,
Daniel
Thanks Daniel !
Please read my post above, I have some bad experience with the first agronomist who works for the local wine grower. They were not interested in identification/localization of diseases/pests because they say it's too late.. If I could detect the location before the disease appears, that could be of value for them. But I fear this is too much to ask of any spectral imagery.. It would also require daily flights with daily DVI maps and I don't have any source of funding for this research that has to take whole year probably. I thought that maybe someone could be interested to fund this but it's hard to find such source. Maybe different wine grower.. Maybe a grant application from some University.. It will take time until I find the right contacts to all possible targets within 100km range of my home.. I realize only a few might be interested in this technology anyway..
Regarding the weed identification - please what type of main crop was in focus ? I suppose a grain, corn or wheat is not of interest here.. maybe tomato or potato ?
Wow, great ! We can discuss it in private now.
Hi Michal,
We use DVI images to quantify weed coverage on fallow fields, so the type of crop isn't terribly important. Organic farmers need this information to determine when to take a field out of organic rotation and conventional farmers need this to spot spray round-up resistant weeds. There is some potential to identify weeds in a growing field using different spectral properties, but we only have done this successfully with one weed type.
Best,
Daniel
Hi Michal,
From a single NIR image I can already see the same differences that an NDVI is going to point out to be honest. The sensors in these consumer cameras capture a very wide band of the spectrum, which makes it harder to extract very specific information, you'd need multispectral sensors to be able to extract more information. NDVI is a bit like only having a hammer when you want to construct a house, quite a blunt tool.
Selling to individuals costs a lot of effort in convincing and test flying while not making money. Focus on a decent sized organization first and run experiments with them. There was a story about McCain looking into drone use for potato crop monitoring. That is an excellent way to immediately push ahead for other customers and get the exposure you need.
Not all viticulturists are concerned about their crop. Here 1/5 grows wine with noble grapes, the others are very regular wines really. The immediate concerns they have are "is there going to be rainfall this year?" and the other is "is anyone invading my vineyard and constructing houses?". Precision Ag only comes somewhere after that, so you shouldn't expect jaw-drops when you explain the technology to them, if you are in situations like that. Best is to take an open-minded approach to things, you may be able to sell services against invasion first and then supplement with other services. Always ask them "what's your biggest concern right now?" and that may give you pointers into new business.
Well I don't expect that consumer grade NIR sensitive camera will be the ultimate solution here. It is just the starting point that is cheap and will point out something you can't see in visible light. I'm not a millionaire who can buy anything and this is probably the same situation with most of the users here. As I wrote before in this blog, hyperspectral camera is too expensive just for testing. I know it starts on a price tag about 60-75000 EUR and that is the cheapest sensor with who knows what quality if you cannot test it.
I don't know anything about thermal cameras and their price range, but certainly it's not something cheap and the resolution for the vine might be too low too. But I will investigate in this matter..
Serious multispectral cameras like Tetracam that are light and cheap enough might be an option, but again the bands are broad and the result might be similar to consumer grade camera that is even cheaper. So why to invest ?
I'm not selling to individuals with small vineyard. My first potential client has a 30 hectare field with several types of vine and he is profit oriented with lot's of technology already invested. They have own agronomist and I already had a meeting with them. It is the nearest vine grower who could be interested if I have something to show. So it's now a question if I want to invest a time to frequently fly over his vineyard and observe some pattern in NDVI / VI data with consumer grade camera or rather invest into different sensor/camera that would help me get out the information I can sell better. But my financies are very limited and I don't want to go to bank and borrow money just to find out that at he end I have no product to sell. It's a huge risk for me but that is the essence of business right :) First I want to study all literature about the topic, then see what could be the best option for this market.
I don't have big eyes. Maybe vine growers are not the market for me after all. But farmers with other crops might be in the same situation. It's the technology that should make the difference, after all why are we doing all this ?
I've as many others spent too much time and money to build a flyable drone with some cameras onboard. Now is the time to find out if there is a market to sell it somehow. I did not spent time on this just for fun.. If this industry is meant to be used in precision agriculture as the main source of income (according to many AUVSI talks or any market predictions I've seen in the last 5 years) then let's find out if that is true. Do you have some experience with this ?
Hi Tim,
thanks for great input ! It's always best to talk to people like you who know about the vine everything.. The application of any technology in a specific field is always a dual know-how that needs to be set.
About the virus - So far I have experience with one agronomist who works for the local wine grower and producer here in Slovakia. First I thought this UAV spectral mapping application with exact quantification and localization of pests or diseases would be valuable for them but then I've got a surprising answer. The agronomist said that when a disease appears in some part of the vineyard and he finds out, he immediately applies a cure/pesticides to the whole vineyard as a matter of precaution. He says it's already too late ! So he does not want to save money on purpose using a variable rate application. Now I don't understand this logic but is it normal ? Maybe I have to approach different wine producer and see the reaction.. Maybe in the US people think different..
The UAV birds - nice thought, should be easy to make it happen. I can see some potential in experimenting with ultrasonic sound etc.. But this should be automated one day ! Charge, fly, re-charge, fly, all autonomous.. No need for people to take care of this.. But in current human environment, impossible to deliver.. People are just too afraid of fully autonomous flying things without an operator.. But in future I see potential..
I'm not selling vehicles.. I offer service product.. There are too many things that may go wrong with this technology and I don't want to make a customer pay for these faults. It's not a reliable business model anyway if you are selling a device that a usual non-pilot has to operate. Even training requires now a manual control before you can apply autopilot and that takes time, nerves, stress, crashes etc.. I really am looking forward to a day when all this is a fully autonomous vehicle without a stress of a crash etc.. I imagine I'm sitting on a beach, drinking cocktail and watching my UAVs how they fly simultaneously over may customers fields and autonomously recharge, upload the data. All processed data is available almost instantly on the cloud and I can focus on the real business and not the tools to deliver it. One day..
Daily jobs - stress, vigor, water maps - this is weather dependent and things like Trimble Greenseeker have advantage over UAVs. But who knows about the price of those devices and how many you need over the vineyard.. If UAV's are about to bring some added value then simple consumer grade NIR sensitive camera will not be enough I fear. Hyperspectral or thermal camera may be the way to go and add more value information for the management.. But those are expensive.. Maybe one day I will have a chance to get one..
You may send me your email if you wish to talk more in private.. But firstly I wanted to share info here, it could be beneficial for all of us. It's like Linux - the best things in life are for free :)
OK one more thing: If the disease is showing on grapes only and it does not show on leaves then most probably I will not be able to detect it by any camera.. The leaves of vine are shadowing the grapes which means a problem.. There is only a partial chance the grapes are visible from some angle but that depends on too many factors.. Could you perhaps list some diseases that are visible on the top layer leaves ? I mean the color can change or it may shrink or anything that is visible without a NIR camera needed first..
Now look what I found : http://smartvineyard.com/precision-viticulture-system/
Isn't that a UAV killer ?
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