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The application of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and deep learning to different domains has become increasingly popular in the last several years. In particular, such models have been used in the agriculture domain to identify... more
The application of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and deep learning to different domains has become increasingly popular in the last several years. In particular, such models have been used in the agriculture domain to identify plant species, identify plant stresses, and estimate crop yields. Although there has been much success in applying these techniques to the agriculture domain, these works contain many shortcomings that are hindering their chance for adoption in practice (e.g., lack of domain knowledge, predicting only specific stress types, etc.). We address issues of previous works for the task of plant stress identification by applying a hierarchical classification approach employing confidence as a means to determine the specificity of a classification. This work is a collaboration between computer science and agricultural engineering experts.
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Environmental pollution due to excessive use of nitrogen (N) fertilizer in agricultural production has become a serious issue of concern worldwide. Farmers are under increasing pressure to adopt farming practices that maintain high crop... more
Environmental pollution due to excessive use of nitrogen (N) fertilizer in agricultural production has become a serious issue of concern worldwide. Farmers are under increasing pressure to adopt farming practices that maintain high crop yields as well as reduce environmental footprints. Among options for addressing these challenges is the use of in-season N management practices that result in good synchronization between N fertilizer supply and crop demand, thereby reducing the chances of N loss and improving crop N use efficiency. The objectives of this study were to a. Determine the impact of timing and rate of N application on corn yield; and b. Compare the economics of in-season N management practices with the baseline management practice that involves application of large quantities of N prior to planting and a small portion of N at planting. Twenty-four treatments, with combinations of four fertilization times (i.e., pre-planting, at-planting, mid-season, and late-season) and ...
Precision agricultural technologies have provided farmers, practitioners and researchers the ability to conduct on-farm or field scale research to refine farm management, improve long term crop production decisions, and implement... more
Precision agricultural technologies have provided farmers, practitioners and researchers the ability to conduct on-farm or field scale research to refine farm management, improve long term crop production decisions, and implement site-specific management strategies. The limitations of these technologies must be understood by those using them to conduct field scale research to gain useful knowledge from such investigations. Therefore, this paper will address how several precision agriculture technologies can be successfully used to conduct research at a field scale level. Discussions will include yield monitors, variable-rate, auto-swath technologies, guidance systems and GPS/GNSS correction services along with proper setup of machinery equipped with these technologies. The importance of selection, calibration, maintenance, and management will be covered and how these can impact results and thereby decisions made from utilizing these technologies for research purposes. Users must und...
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Remote sensing (RS) technologies provide a diagnostic tool that can serve as an early warning system, allowing the agricultural community to intervene early on to counter potential problems before they spread widely and negatively impact... more
Remote sensing (RS) technologies provide a diagnostic tool that can serve as an early warning system, allowing the agricultural community to intervene early on to counter potential problems before they spread widely and negatively impact crop productivity. With the recent advancements in sensor technologies, data management and data analytics, currently, several RS options are available to the agricultural community. However, the agricultural sector is yet to implement RS technologies fully due to knowledge gaps on their sufficiency, appropriateness and techno-economic feasibilities. This study reviewed the literature between 2000 to 2019 that focused on the application of RS technologies in production agriculture, ranging from field preparation, planting, and in-season applications to harvesting, with the objective of contributing to the scientific understanding on the potential for RS technologies to support decision-making within different production stages. We found an increasin...
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ABSTRACT
... color textures as further described by Shearer (1986). Color images of leaf canopies of seven cultivars of nursery stock were used to demonstrate classification power of this new approach. ... To characterize visual plant canopy... more
... color textures as further described by Shearer (1986). Color images of leaf canopies of seven cultivars of nursery stock were used to demonstrate classification power of this new approach. ... To characterize visual plant canopy textures using color co-occurrence matrices. ...
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... continues, the need for automated inspection and grading systems also increases.Mechanized systems harvest a greater percentage of misshapen or injured fruit when compared with the labor intensive manual harvest methods. ...
Research Interests: Algorithms, Image Processing, Computers, Vision, Grading, and 3 moreColour, Sorting, and Utilization
ABSTRACT The environmental effect of weed control systems has stimulated research into new practices for weed control, such as selective herbicide application methods on weed-infested crop areas. This research used the color co-occurrence... more
ABSTRACT The environmental effect of weed control systems has stimulated research into new practices for weed control, such as selective herbicide application methods on weed-infested crop areas. This research used the color co-occurrence method (CCM) texture analysis to determine the effects of plant maturity on the accuracy of weed species classification of digitized images. Two different experimental combinations of weed species and maturity level were examined. The weed species evaluated were ivyleaf morningglory, giant foxtail, large crabgrass, and velvetleaf, with soil image sets added to each experiment. One study examined classification accuracies for two weed species at three maturity levels, and the second study examined four weed species at two maturity levels. For each species-maturity level combination, 40 digital images were collected from a manually seeded outdoor plant bed. Digitized images were transformed from the red–green–blue (RGB) color format into hue–saturation–intensity (HSI) format to generate CCM texture feature data. Stepwise variable reduction procedures were used to select texture variables with the greatest discriminant capacity. Then discriminant analysis was used to determine the classification accuracy for the two different experiments. When using HSI texture statistics, discriminant analysis correctly classified weed species within and across maturity levels with an accuracy above 97% for both experimental groups. These image processing algorithms demonstrate potential use for weed scouting, weed infestation mapping, and weed control applications using site-specific farming technology. Nomenclature: Ivyleaf morningglory, Ipomoea hederacea (L.) Jacq. IPOHE; giant foxtail, Setaria faberi Hermm. SETFA; large crabgrass, Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. DIGSA; velvetleaf, Abutilon theophrasti Medik. ABUTH.
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... Mechanical methods have not been found to be commercially useful, primarily because of difficulty of in-line installation, sanitation problems associated with mechanical devices, and lack of equipment reliability (Dave McKenna, 1991,... more
... Mechanical methods have not been found to be commercially useful, primarily because of difficulty of in-line installation, sanitation problems associated with mechanical devices, and lack of equipment reliability (Dave McKenna, 1991, Foss Food Technology, Minneapolis, MN ...
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Soil surveys provide information about the location of eroded areas across landscapes, but not at a scale that may be necessary for land use planning, precision agriculture, and conservation management. The objective of this paper was to... more
Soil surveys provide information about the location of eroded areas across landscapes, but not at a scale that may be necessary for land use planning, precision agriculture, and conservation management. The objective of this paper was to determine whether site-specific information and logistic regression could be used to improve the spatial resolution of soil surveys. This study was conducted on fragipan soils developed from loess in a western Kentucky agricultural field. Information about the presence and severity of erosion was obtained from a highly detailed first-order soil survey and less detailed second-order county soil surveys. Digital terrain attributes (slope, length-slope factor, wetness), reflectance (visible, red-NIR, and NIR), soil electrical conductivity, and direct contact electrical conductivity were used as regressor variables. Binary variables were assigned a value of one if they were located in eroded map phases and if slope values were greater than or equal to t...
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... Mg and Zn prediction models indicated that these soil properties may not provide reliable results. These results and conclusions are from Shelby County soils within the Kentucky bluegrass region. Acknowledgements ... 10:215. Reeves,... more
... Mg and Zn prediction models indicated that these soil properties may not provide reliable results. These results and conclusions are from Shelby County soils within the Kentucky bluegrass region. Acknowledgements ... 10:215. Reeves, JB, GW McCarty, and JJ Meisinger. 1999. ...
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Maps identifying areas prone to channel erosion within agricultural fields could be useful for conservation planners. The objective of this study was to test an approach for creating such maps with logistic regression and neural networks.... more
Maps identifying areas prone to channel erosion within agricultural fields could be useful for conservation planners. The objective of this study was to test an approach for creating such maps with logistic regression and neural networks. Survey grade elevation measurements were obtained from on a Central Kentucky farm. The elevation measurements were used to create 4 by 4-m digital elevation models (DEMs) from which terrain attributes were derived. Areas exhibiting evidence of erosion caused by overland water flow sufficient to justify the placement of grassed waterways were identified. The terrain attributes were used as predictor variables and models were fit using the field assessments of soil erosion. Leave-one-field-out validation analysis was conducted to assess the quality of predictions maps. For the models created with logistic regression, an average of 14% of the 4 by 4-m grid cells in noneroded areas were incorrectly classified as being eroded and 16% of cells in eroded ...
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The environmental benefits of grassed waterways (GWWs) including erosion control and sediment reduction in runoff are well documented. The USDA-NRCS provides funding to producers for the establishment and maintenance of approved waterways... more
The environmental benefits of grassed waterways (GWWs) including erosion control and sediment reduction in runoff are well documented. The USDA-NRCS provides funding to producers for the establishment and maintenance of approved waterways in these areas if a field has sufficient erosion resulting from concentrated water flow. The first step in successfully establishing a grassed waterway is for an NRCS conservationist to make a site assessment to determine if sufficient erosion exists to warrant mitigation. This involves traversing fields to locate physical evidence of prior erosion which can be a time consuming and expensive process. Precision agriculture technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS) may improve the efficiency of locating areas for GWWs per NRCS guidelines. In a previous study, a model was developed with considerable predictive capacity that identified where erosion resulting from concentrated water flow was likely t...
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Concentrated water flow causes considerable erosion in agricultural fields. The objective of this study was to test whether a stochastic modeling approach could be used to determine the location of erosion channels based on terrain... more
Concentrated water flow causes considerable erosion in agricultural fields. The objective of this study was to test whether a stochastic modeling approach could be used to determine the location of erosion channels based on terrain attributes derived from 10-m level-2 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) elevation data. Logistic regression was used to develop models that predicted where erosion was likely to occur based on digital terrain attributes derived from the elevation data. The model was fit using georeferenced field observations of soil erosion. A simple two-variable model was developed for predicting erosion channels that included two topographic attributes: the length-slope factor (t score = 9.7) and the topographic wetness index (t score = 11.4). Leave-one-field-out cross-validation (average of 22% false positives and 34% false negatives) confirmed that models correctly identified many of the eroded waterway features but did not accurately predict their shapes. This work sugges...
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Page 1. The authors are solely responsible for the content of this technical presentation. The technical presentation does not necessarily reflect the official position of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers ...
Modern rate controllers along with technologies such as automatic section control (ASC) can improve in-field input use efficiency while preventing detrimental effect of unwanted spray application in areas such as grassed waterways or... more
Modern rate controllers along with technologies such as automatic section control (ASC) can improve in-field input use efficiency while preventing detrimental effect of unwanted spray application in areas such as grassed waterways or other environmental structures. ...
ABSTRACT The objective of this research project was to design and construct an apparatus to assess the dynamic performance of GPS receivers for application in the field of precision agriculture. An I-beam track was constructed to support... more
ABSTRACT The objective of this research project was to design and construct an apparatus to assess the dynamic performance of GPS receivers for application in the field of precision agriculture. An I-beam track was constructed to support this fixture-based test system. A prototype cart was fabricated for initial testing. Positioning data were collected using both an RTK GPS system and a low-cost GPS receiver. Analysis of the RTK data showed that the track system held the receiver to within a few centimeters along the track. Comparison of the RTK and low-cost GPS receiver data demonstrate how the test track system will be used in its final form. The low-cost receiver positioning data strayed from the RTK data by as much as 1.75 meters.
Page 1. This is not a peer-reviewed article. Paper Number: 031010 An ASAE Meeting Presentation Using Low-Cost GPS Receivers for Boundary Mapping Timothy S. Stombaugh, Assistant Professor Biosystems and Agricultural ...