Agriculture field characterization using aerial photograph and satellite imagery

Successfully delineating management zones that differ in crop productivity is an important component of site-specific management. We compared the effectiveness of the digitally scanned color aerial infrared photographs and digital Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data for delineating within-field zones. The zones delineated using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from TM data explained 34% of field yield variance compared with 9% for that from digitally scanned color aerial infrared photograph data. The zones from NDVI using Landsat TM were better able to capture spatial differences in plant growth and relatively stable soil attribute of surface soil organic carbon.