Can satellites monitor crop and pasture quality across Australia?

Knowledge of crop and pasture quality can provide the industry with insights to assist with the grazing management of pastures and input management decisions for crops. Handheld and lab-based spectroscopy have been extensively employed to monitor quality-based plant attributes. The methods employed are time consuming and expensive to implement and do not provide the industry with insights into the temporal trends of the critical variables. High resolution and frequent return time can overcome numerous deficiencies affecting equivalent visible IR and SWIR platforms, that limit the ability to create a viable product around crop and pasture quality. This project would conduct a feasibility analysis that capitalises on existing and planned satellite missions, including the Aquawatch satellites and precursors to test development of new high frequency products for crop and pasture quality across the Australian landscape.

P3.25

Project Leader:
Dr Roger Lawes, CSIRO

Participants: