PrecisionHawk and Leonardo Launch Absolute Nitrogen Content App for Drones

PrecisionHawk and Leonardo, a multinational high-tech security company, have collaborated to deliver to customers a new algorithm that automatically detects wheat nitrogen levels from drone-collected imagery. The Absolute Nitrogen Content app is available to the public in PrecisionHawk’s Algorithm Marketplace.
 

 

“As supply expectations shift during the season due to planted acreage, weather, and growing conditions, drone technology can give growers a precise assessment of what a field actually needs, impacting the bottom line,” said Patrick Lohman, PrecisionHawk VP of partnerships. “By partnering with industry leaders, like Leonardo, PrecisionHawk is continuing to push the boundaries of how drone data can be utilized across commercial applications and made available to growers around the world.”

 

“Leonardo is making use of our years of experience in taking big data and turning it into useful, actionable intelligence for our security customers.” said Stewart Miller, SVP of Support and Service Solutions UK at Leonardo. “We’re excited to be exploiting our know-how in the form of Absolute Nitrogen Content, allowing farmers to be more efficient and in turn improving the world’s food security.”

 

The Absolute Nitrogen Content app is designed to support variable rate prescription applications in wheat fields and uses imagery collected by multispectral sensors. Wheat growers and producers will be able to upload field imagery and select the app to automatically view nitrogen levels in their crop. Nitrogen fertilizer is a high expense for farmers, and this has resulted in increasing demand for tools that curb costs. 
 

Drones are being adopted by farmers as a tool in precision agriculture to provide insights that are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with current technologies. The additional field data can be used to conserve resources and increase efficiencies.