Last week I taught an introduction to remote sensing within the context of plant health for the EU commission Better Training for Safer Food (BTSF) programme. The course covered the basics of remote sensing and applications of it. The second part of the course consisted of hands-on exercises to teach the basic principles of data acquisition and processing, i.e. how and where to get data and explore it with with plant health in mind. We also demonstrated the use of UAVs (in this case small drones) to quickly survey larger areas.
During the final part of the course we provided a guided discussion where the participants were asked to brainstorm on how these applications might serve their needs. There was considerable interest in advanced sensor techniques, early detection and predictive modelling for statistical survey design and planning purposes. Initial mapping efforts leveraging nation state data (orthomosaics) might serve many participants’ needs. We acknowledged that a lot of these concepts are rather advanced and could not be fully elaborated during the course.
There was a large interest in the topic of remote sensing within the context of plant health monitoring. However, not all topics could be covered in depth during this limited session. The plant health community could benefit from additional training with respect to leveraging remote sensing mapping, to assist in modelling plant health dynamics in support of in-situ surveys. We hope we can repeat this BTSF session next year, if not expand it to hands-on mapping and remote sensing and GIS supported disease modelling.
