Plants will often exhibit signature characteristics when they are stressed, thriving, dying, blooming, or infected. These signatures may not always be visible to the human eye; however, they will usually have a strong correlation to the content of chlorophyll within the photosynthetically active regions of plants. Healthy plants normally have greater chlorophyll content in their leaves than unhealthy plants.

Plants with high amounts of chlorophyll within their reflective structures will reflect a greater percentage of near-infrared and red edge light wavelengths emitted from the Sun than plants with lower amounts of chlorophyll. Therefore, in many cases, the amount of reflected near-infrared and red edge light that is reflected off a crop can be used as a marker to help quantify characteristics associated with the health of a plant.

H&K Precision Agriculture provides unique insights to vegetation growth, and our crop and plot trial research programs deliver timely, and accurate assessments based on high-resolution aerial imagery that can only be obtained using sensors flown at low altitudes by unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or “drones.”