GOAL & EXPLANATION OF PROJECT

On August 29, 2016 the long awaited permanent regulations for commercial use of small UAS (sUAS) will go into effect. Having this permanent regulatory structure in place and, knowing that the requirements are quite reasonable, suggests there will be a dramatic increase in the use of sUAS for a variety of commercial applications including the nursery industry.

However, as the floodgates for commercial sUAS users opens, there is a lack of research based information on how these aerial systems will be used in nursery production in a cost effective manner. The challenge of sustainable use of irrigation water will compel the container nursery industry to adopt technologies to better monitor crop water status and remotely sensed data from a sUAS will be an important tool in precision nursery crop production.

A collaborative team from Clemson University and the University of Arkansas has been a pioneer in the use of sUAS for agricultural applications. Now that permanent regulations are in place, the challenge is identifying and developing cost effective uses, essentially moving our knowledge from the lab to the field.

The specific objective of this project is to demonstrate that a cost effective small unmanned aircraft system, which includes a low cost sensor and open source software, can be used by nursery growers to monitor plants for water stress.

A longer term goal of this study is to develop tools and techniques that reduce the production costs and improve aerial crop monitoring systems in open-field nursery production.