IMAGING SERVICES FOR

Variable rate applications

Your decision to apply fungicide or not has to make or save money.  SAIRS has just one point of view on this.....The flight and mapping action MUST save you more in fungicide costs than the cost of having your field mapped by drone.  

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2018 was a wet growing season in SAIRS' working area.  It wasn't cost effective to apply fungicide across acres that were 100% drowned out or highly stressed from excess water.  By zoning the flooded and stressed areas with UAV imagery, on/off fungicide prescriptions were created.  Across all fields, the on/off prescriptions averaged about a 28% reduction in fungicide requirements.  Even after the cost of UAV mapping, there was consistently considerable fungicide savings to the producer.  

The ultimate decision on whether a zone or field needs fungicide, and at what rate, lies with the producer or agronomist.  Aggressive and experienced decision makers may elect for an "off" prescription in more marginal zones.  

FORENSIC AGROLOGY

Crop Injury from herbicide drift

Forensic is defined as pertaining to, connected with, or used in courts of law or public discussion and debate. Whether the subject matter of forensics is agrology or crime, the tenants remain the same. Forensics drives at finding truth through documentation and interpretation of evidence. Whether studying an image of a discoloured canola leaf in a Saskatchewan field, or analyzing an image of a fingerprint located at a crime scene, forensic experts collect evidence that will assist in the search for truth. They remain unbiased in evidence collection and presentation. In today’s agricultural environment, an unfortunate reality is the unintended drift of herbicides onto adjacent crops. Resolutions to “drifting” can range from friendly to adversarial and can lead all the way to court proceedings. With over two decades of experience in collecting and presenting “truth” to potentially adversarial parties, Kevin knows that getting the unbiased truth and presenting it fairly leads to early and fair resolution of disputes. Specialized in photographic evidence collection, and an expert witness in the court room, Kevin is at home in the field forensic agrology. His techniques in herbicide drift cases involve drone mapping followed by detailed “boots on the ground” photographic evidence of damaged and healthy areas of the crop. All ground images are captured in a professional forensic format with DSLR camera equipment (no cell phone cameras!) and geotagged for placement onto a drone map of the involved field. This provides undisputable proof of where within the field the image was obtained. Kevin isn’t an expert in agrology and he will not state the cause of crop injury. However, he will provide a court ready expert witness report from the point of a view of an imaging specialist who has attended and documented the field. His report will include both NDVI and RGB maps of the questioned field. All data including all images from the drone and ground level close ups will be provided to the requesting party. The imagery he provides compliments the opinions of qualified agrologists and producers who have the experience to determine whether there is a drift injury. Once injury is confirmed, the NDVI maps collected by the drone and the measuring tools within the mapping software are excellent tools to quantify the area of injury. Should a case proceed to court, Kevin will prepare a professional photographic presentation that will assist the expert in presenting and explaining his or her opinions on the crop injury.