HIVACROM: High Value Crop Monitoring

The benefits of precision architecture are well documented having trebled crop yields since the 1950s. However, present space-based monitoring services are failing to deliver for those crops that are high value for the UK, such as the potato and sugar beet industries which are collectively worth over £1bn per year. This project - the HIVACROM (High Value Crop Monitoring) project - is a proof of concept for a near real time, dynamic integrated crop monitoring service derived from Earth observation data to accurately estimate key canopy variables in high value crops, (initially potato & sugar beet), as well as soil moisture characteristics from satellite remote sensing imagery. The planned resultant service will provide mass market access for targeted agronomy; mapping and identifying areas of low crop growth as a result of disease, nitrogen deficit, poor seeding and water stress, as well as providing producers with a macroscopic monitoring tool of their cropped area