Remote sensing –Beyond images Mexico 14-15 December 2013 The workshop was organized by CIMMYT Global Conservation Agriculture Program (GCAP) and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Mexican Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), CGIAR Research Program on Maize, the Cereal System Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and the Sustainable Modernization of the Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro)

1. Eric Miller, Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio, and Bill Raun
Beyond Diagnostics: Insights and
Recommendations from Remote Sensing
December 14th, 2013

2. 

Update on the Trimble® GreenSeeker
handheld crop sensor
Progress with the OSU singulating hand-held
planter
◦ Capable of singulating corn seeds and applying
fertilizer nitrogen as urea beneath the soil’s surface

3. Sensor Extension, Ciudad Obregon, MX
Dr. Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio

4. 
Objective
◦ Develop a small and cost-effective NDVI sensor to
duplicate the results of a commercial GreenSeeker
sensor (Crain et al., 2012)
Picture courtesy of Jared Crain

5. MSRP $495 USD

7. Model parameters and analysis of variance; slope equal to 1 and intercept equal to 0
Sensor Readings
Parameter of the
model†
R2
NDVI
a
b
All
0.05
0.97
0.88
Greater than 0.50
-0.08
1.21
Less than 0.50
0.07
0.93
n
† a = intercept, b = slope
Significance
(Pr > F)
Intercept
Slope
1485
<0.001
0.001
0.72
160
0.002
<0.001
0.78
1325
<0.001
<0.001

8. #6 Trigo
(Mexico)
nue.okstate.edu

9. nue.okstate.edu

10. Opico Quezaltepeque, El Salvador

12. 




Remove chemically treated seeds from
the hands of small farmers
Decrease soil erosion via improved
plant spacing
Accommodate mid-season application
of fertilizer (N and P)
Place urea below the surface reducing
NH3 losses
Potential to increase third-world
maize production and NUE

14. 

875,098,631 Mg maize
176,991,927 ha of maize
◦ 4.95 Mg ha-1


>50,000,000 ha in the
developing world
60% planted by hand
◦ 20,645,000 ha or 13% of the
total maize area in the world
FAOstat, 2013
Hand Planter Testing: 2013
Ciudad Obregon, MX
Dr. Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio

15. 


seed size
(2653-4344 seeds/kg)
seed type and shape
fertilizer
1,000,000 cycles
0.29g/seed
60,000 seeds/ha
3443 seeds/kg
1.0 kg hopper
17 times refill
nue.okstate.edu/Hand_Planter.htm

16. 
Third world maize yields hover near
2.0 Mg ha-1 (Dowswell, et al., 1996)
“OSU Hand Planter”

17. 100
P-450
P-260
Emergence, %
80
R-450
60
R-260
40
T-P450
20
T-P-260
T-R-450
0
T-R-260
4
6
8
10
12
check
Days after planting

Maize emergence delayed by as few as four days, resulted in
a yield depression of 15 percent (Hodgen et al., 2007)

18. 
Homogeneity in maize plant spacing, plant stands, and
emergence can decrease plant-to-plant variation and
increase grain yields (Nielsen, 1997; Martin et al., 2005)

19. Thailand
El Salvador
Mexico
Guatemala
Zambia

20. Questions?