Early Identification of Cotton Fields Using Mosaicked Aerial Imagery

Early identification of cotton fields is important for advancing boll weevil eradication progress and reducing the risk of re-infestation. Remote sensing has been used for crop identification for decades, but limited work has been reported on early identification of cotton fields. The objective of this study was to evaluate mosaicked aerial imagery for identifying cotton fields before cotton plants start to bloom. A two-camera imaging system was used to acquire RGB and NIR images with a pixel array of 5616 × 3744 over an 8 km by 14.5 km (5 mi by 9 mi) cropping area near College Station, TX in the 2014 growing season. The images were acquired at 3048 m (10000 ft) above ground level along two flight lines to achieve a pixel resolution of 1.0 m. The individual images were mosaicked as one single image and then classified into different crop and cover types using supervised classification techniques. Preliminary results showed that the mosaicked color image was able to accurately differentiate cotton fields from other crop and cover types. These results will be useful for boll weevil eradication program managers to quickly and efficiently identify cotton fields and potential areas for volunteer and regrowth cotton plants.