Cover crops are becoming an important tool for weed suppression, and their biomass is among the most accurate predictors of how effective they’ll be. But estimating biomass is difficult with currently available methods, especially when cover crop growth in a field is patchy. Researchers are developing an inexpensive, efficient and highly accurate way for growers to estimate cover crop biomass in cereal rye. It shows promise for use with other types of cover crops, too.
New technology aims to map cereal rye cover crop biomass
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April Dobbs gathers visual data on a cereal rye cover crop using a GoPro camera.
Computer-generated, 3D point clouds of cover crops in the field, generated by the new technology, aim to provide farmers with detailed maps of their cover crop biomass.
The map shows variability in cereal rye biomass across a field, generated using 3D point clouds. The red areas indicate highest biomass levels, and the blue areas indicate lowest biomass.
Still image frame, left, from GoPro videos taken over the cover crop, and a 3D point cloud of the same area in the field generated using structure-from-motion.
A diagram of the proposed tractor-mounted system, where the camera mounted on the front of the tractor records videos from over the cover crop immediately before the crop is terminated.
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