If a few weeks ago we echoed the use of new imaging technologies for the rapid and effective characterization of vineyard components, in this new post we address how new remote sensing tools allow evaluating, through remote imaging, differences in the appearance of the vineyard to detect variations in our crops. Generally, remote sensing has been based on the use of images from satellites, but some of its limitations (eg: high cost and low resolution of images) limit its practical application.
Thus, the use of aerial platforms is presented as a revolution in the field of remote sensing, since it allows flexibility and personalization of the time and place where the images are taken. Likewise, it allows obtaining higher resolution images with more detailed information on the plantation, thus optimizing decision-making by the winegrower (Zaman-Allah et al., 2015). Among these aerial platforms, the use of drones (unmanned aerial platforms) equipped with cameras of different kinds (such as hyperspectral cameras, infrared cameras and thermographic cameras) to fly over the vineyard and acquire the images continuously and dynamically is becoming more and more popular. . In this sense, there are numerous publications that demonstrate the usefulness of these images for the indirect evaluation of important characteristics of the vineyard. Thus, Primicerio et al . (2012) showed the usefulness of images taken with a multispectral camera loaded on a drone to evaluate the vigor of a vineyard. Among the results of this work, a parcel zoning was obtained in accordance with the evaluation carried out in a traditional way (Figure 1), but with the advantage of speed (63 multispectral images in 10 minutes of autonomous flight) and the precision of the technique. Similarly, Turner et al. (2011) used a drone equipped with an infrared thermal camera (Figure 2) to evaluate the soil moisture of the vineyard , which allows designing personalized irrigation strategies to improve the efficiency of the crop. More recently, the use of this technology has been tested to evaluate the response to water stress of a vineyardof the Pinot noir variety, using a drone equipped with thermographic imaging equipment (Bellvert et al., 2014). The results showed a high correlation between the data obtained from the image captured by the drone and the manual measurements, also demonstrating the usefulness of this equipment to establish areas of the vineyard with different responses to situations of water stress.
Thus, the use of drones in precision viticulture has proven to be an effective tool for obtaining fast and accurate information on our plots in a dynamic way, also presenting itself as an interesting option to improve the efficiency of modern grape genetic improvement plans. table and winemaking.
