Get a closer look at your land, from 2 million feet above.
Analyze near-infrared images across the whole growing season to keep an eye on crop health.
Because conditions on your land are constantly changing, it’s not always easy to know how productive it will be or predict how much yield it will produce in the future. What if you could farm with greater precision, using exactly the right amount of water, pesticides and fertilizer – and no more? What if you could be sure, you were always planting the right crop in the right place and at the right time?
By capturing a bird’s-eye view of your land, we can unlock the insights you need to farm more precisely, forecast more accurately and be more productive. Whether it’s saving water and fertilizer, managing grazing to make the most of your pasture or spotting crop disease before it spreads, the information we uncover will help you work more efficiently. So, you can get more product – and more profit – from less.
We work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), capturing the entire surface of the USA (except Alaska and Hawaii) during the growing season.
In just over two weeks, GEOSAT 1 and its twin UK-DMC-2 capture imagery of more than 8,000,000 km2. These scientific-quality images are analyzed to show crop health and detect disease and areas of drought.
Watching crops grow.
With satellite images and mosaic of the Contiguous United States (CONUS) produced every 14 days, we can reveal how different crops across the country are growing over time.
Reflecting crop health with near-infrared imagery.
We use a multispectral camera to capture light waves which are just beyond the spectrum of light we can see, like near-infrared, which tells us a lot about plant health. The amount of near-infrared waves that plants absorb or reflect depends on how much chlorophyll they contain – a healthy plant with more chlorophyll will reflect more near-infrared energy than an unhealthy plant. So brighter red colors on the image indicate areas with healthier crops.
Putting a value on crop growth.
The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is an indicator of the status of crops and its trend over time shows the phenological evolution of the plants.
Very low values represent areas of barren rock or sand, while high values indicate areas where crops are at their peak growth.
Unlocking insights for more efficient farming.
Using our imagery and data, the USDA creates Cropscape: a detailed, layered map which includes information for all the crops growing across the USA, giving farmers the insights they need to farm more efficiently and boost production.
KEY BENEFITS
Make huge water savings.
By showing land owners exactly where their crops are growing less strongly, they’re able to irrigate more precisely: watering only where needed.
Spot (and stop) crop disease sooner.
Images taken almost every day enable to spot crop diseases early, so farmers could act quickly to save their crops.
Grow your crop yields.
Combining precise irrigation with the ability to stop disease in its tracks helped farmers get the most out of their land and increase crop yields.