Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The meeting consisted of two types of activities - those that focused on building the knowledge of the team about stakeholder needs, and those devoted to advancing project goals. External activities included presentations from Justin McAllister, CTO at Micasense, who discussed the new Altum sensor and answered participant questions, as well as Madison Dixon, Chief Safety Officer at MSU Raspet Flight Lab who updated all participants on current FAA policies and upcoming rules changes related to operation of UAVs. Dr. Steve Thompson provided an update of NIFA opportunities on the horizon. Finally, a panel was convened to connect the group to real world users in order to understand what needs are present for users currently operating UAV in natural resources.  Project goal related activities consisted of a series of breakout sessions to catalog the current status of many activities, and ascertain what activities in the current year would best advance the group towards meeting project goals. Ample time for informal discussion was available during breaks and at the dinner social.  A list of action items that were decided upon appears under Accomplishments. Next year’s meeting will be held in Washington State in June, hosted by Dr. Khot.  The group elected Dr. Ganesh Bora as the incoming secretary. 

Short-term Outcomes: Progress was made towards many project goals. A majority of objectives require an extensive cataloguing of existing publications. Groups worked to develop annotated bibliographies relevant to each objective.  Ultimately this catalogue will form the basis of the anticipated on-line database identified under Outputs in the original NIMSS documentation.

Milestones: Action items for the coming year were decided as follows.

1. Educational Challenge Grant – Saraswat (Lead), Wasson, Bora
2. Sub-task of the Grant, if successful - Standard Operating Procedures for various sensors – Samiappan (Lead)
3. Coordinated Extension effort – Roberson (Lead), Wasson, Khot
4. Opinion paper/editorial/technical note for minimal/optimal reporting of parameters – Rains (Lead), Bagnall, Khot
5. ASABE MS60 (Unmanned Aerial Systems) committee coordinates efforts with approach ASABE Standard committee to consider developing an approved, published, standard UAS Metadata & Imagery standards – Bora (Lead), Thomasson
6. Publications
   1. Optimal number and placement of ground control points (GCPs) and/or thermal targets in row crop setting – TBD (Lead), Cazenave
   2. Review paper on calibration and/or correction in a range of agriculture settings – Bagnall (Lead), Cazenave
7. Reliability of platforms – collating data on success and failure conducting missions – Thomasson (Lead), Czarnecki/Wasson, Cazenave

Gauci, A.A., Brodbeck, C.J., Poncet, A.M., Knappenberger, T. 2018.

Assessing the Geospatial Accuracy of Aerial Imagery Collected with Various

UAS Platforms. Trans. ASABE. (61)6:1-7.

Kaler, A.S., J.D. Ray, W.T. Schapaugh, A.R. Asebedo, C.A. King, E.E. Gbur, and L.C. Purcell.

2018. Association mapping identifies loci for canopy temperature under drought in diverse

soybean genotypes. Euphytica 214:135.

Bai, H. and L.C. Purcell. 2018. Aerial canopy temperature differences between fast- and slow wilting soybean genotypes. J. Agron. Crop Sci. 204:243-251.

Dasika, S.S., Sama, M.P., Pampolini, L.F., Good, C.B. 2019. Performance Validation of a

Multi-Channel LiDAR Sensor: Assessing the Effect of Target Height and Sensor Velocity on

Measurement Error. Transactions of the ASABE. Vol. 62(1): 231-244.

Hamidisepehr, A., Sama, M.P. 2019. Moisture Content Classification of Soil and Stalk

Residue Samples from Spectral Data using Machine Learning Algorithms. Transactions of

the ASABE. Vol. 62(1): 1-8.

Samiappan, S., J. M. Prince Czarnecki, H. Foster, B. K. Strickland, J. L. Tegt, and R. J. Moorhead. 2018. Quantifying damage from wild pigs with small unmanned aerial systems. Wildlife Society Bulletin. 42(2):304-309. http://doi.org/10.1002/wsb.868

Zhang, J., S. Virk, W. M. Porter, K. E. Kenworthy and B. M. Schwartz. Application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based Imagery in Turfgrass Variety Trials. 2018. ASA and CSSA Meetings. November 4-7. Baltimore, MD. (Oral)

2018. Czarnecki, A. Linhoss, L. Hathcock, J. Ramirez-Avila, and T. Schauwecker. 2018. Assessing soil erosion with unmanned aerial vehicles for precision conservation. 73^rd Soil and Water Conservation Society International Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM. (Oral)

Daughtry, D., W. Porter, G. Harris, R. Noland, J. Snider, and S. Virk. 2018. Correlating Plant

Nitrogen Status in Cotton with UAV based Multispectral Imagery. Proceedings of the 14th

International Conference of Precision Agriculture, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Oral and Paper)

Daughtry, D.W., W.M. Porter, G.H. Harris, J.L. Snider, and R.L. Noland. 2019. Using an

Unmanned Aerial System to Collect Mid-Season Multispectral Data for Estimation of Plant

Nitrogen Status in Cotton. Proceedings of the Annual Beltwide Cotton Conferences, New

Orleans, LA, US. (Oral and Paper)

Daughtry, D.W., W.M. Porter, G.H. Harris, J.L. Snider, R.L. Noland, and S. Virk. 2018.

Collection, Processing, and Analyses of in-Season Cotton Multispectral and Fertility Data

Utilizing Unmanned Aerial Systems. 2018. ASA-CSSA International Meeting, Baltimore, MD. (Oral)

Sumner, Z., J. J. Varco, J. Czarnecki, and A. A. A. Fox. 2018. Multi-platform comparison of canopy reflectance on corn whole plant and leaf tissue nitrogen status and grain yield. ASA-CSSA International Meeting, Baltimore, MD. (Poster)

Prince Czarnecki, J. M., L. L. Wasson, A. B. Scholtes, S. M. Carver, and J. T. Irby. 2018. Soybean maturity stage estimation with unmanned aerial systems. 14^th International Conference on Precision Agriculture, Montreal, Canada. (Poster and Paper)

Ana I. de Castro, Joe Mari Maja, Jim Owen, James Robbins, Jose M. Peña, "Experimental approach to detect water stress in ornamental plants using sUAS-imagery," Proc. SPIE 10664, Autonomous Air and Ground Sensing Systems for Agricultural Optimization and Phenotyping III, 106640N (21 May 2018); doi: 10.1117/12.2304739

Zúñiga C. E., A. P. Rathnayake, M. Chakraborty, S. Sankaran, P. Jacoby and L. R. Khot*. 2018. Applicability of time-of flight- based ground and multispectral aerial imaging for grapevine canopy vigour monitoring under direct root-zone deficit irrigation, International Journal of Remote Sensing, DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2018.1500047.

Boydston*, R., L. D. Porter, B. Chaves-Cordoba, L. R. Khot and P. N. Miklas. 2018. The impact of tillage on pinto bean cultivar response to drought induced by deficit irrigation. Soil & Tillage Research, 180: 63-72.

Sankaran*, S., J. Zhou, L.R. Khot, J.J. Trapp, E. Mndolwa and P.N. Miklas. 2018. High-throughput field phenotyping in dry bean using small unmanned aerial vehicle based multispectral imagery. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 151: 84-92.

Zhou, J., L. R. Khot*, R. A. Boydston, P. N. Miklas, and L. Porter. 2017. Low altitude remote sensing technologies for crop stress monitoring: a case study on spatial and temporal monitoring of irrigated pinto bean. Precision Agriculture, DOI: 10.1007/s11119-017-9539-0.

Zúñiga, C. E., L. R. Khot*, S. Sankaran, and P. Jacoby. 2017. High resolution multispectral and thermal remote sensing based water stress assessment in subsurface irrigated grapevines. Remote Sensing, 9(9): 961-976. doi:10.3390/rs9090961.

Khot, L. R., G.-A. Hoheisel, and J. Zhou. 2018. Unmanned aerial systems in agriculture: part III (Mid-sized UAS) - UAS in Ag Series (2015-1493). In Press.

Khot, L. R. and R. T. Peters. 2018. Advances in UAS based imagery and its applications in irrigated agriculture. Irrigation Today Magazine, April, 2018. 23-24.

Khot, L. R. 2018. Drone data for agriculture, Good Fruit Grower Magazine, http://www.goodfruit.com/khot-drone-data-foragriculture/

Chakraborty*, M., L. R. Khot and R. T. Peters. 2018. Assessment of crop growth under modified center pivot irrigation systems using small unmanned aerial system based imaging techniques. Presentation at 14th International conference on Precision Agriculture, Montreal, Canada. June 24-24, 2018. ICPA full paper no. 5308.

Quirós, J., M. Martello and L. R. Khot*. 2018. Field grown apple nursery tree plant counting based on small uas imagery derived elevation maps. Presentation at 14th International conference on Precision Agriculture, Montreal, Canada. June 24-24, 2018. ICPA full paper no. 5152.