Development of a Ground-Based Platform for Plant Phenotyping and Crop Management Decisions

Computer and sensor technology has been advancing at a very rapid pace. In an effort to facilitate crop management decisions and breeding selections a ground-based phenotyping system is being developed at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Corpus Christi, TX using readily available sensor technology. This system is based on a modified ground crop sprayer (Spider, Lee Co. Inc., Idalou, TX). Sensors used include global positioning system (for positioning, GPS), multi-spectral (for normalized differential vegetation index, NDVI), infrared radiometer (for canopy temperature), and sonic ranging (for plant height). The purpose of this study was to compare and contrast sensors for this platform. Two different GPS receivers, NDVI, and sonic ranging sensors were tested. The sensor outputs will be discussed.