Goldilocks and the three fields! Which land will be ready to plant first?

Once upon a time, there was a farmer, who one spring went for a walk around her farm to see which field was ready to plant.?She came to the first field and had a wander around to see what temperature the soil was.?

"This field is too hot!" she exclaimed.? There was no way that she would be able to plant any corn in here.? It would dry out too quickly, there wouldn’t be enough moisture for the seeds to germinate and there would be a lot of pests and diseases to contend with.?

So, she moved on to test the temperature of the second field.?"This field is too cold!" she said.? She couldn’t plant any corn in this field either.? It would result in a poor establishment of the plants, which would be very weak and struggle to grow, making them susceptible to pests, diseases and nutrient deficiencies.???

So, she moved on to the last field to test.?"Ahhh, this field is just right," she said happily and off she went to get ready to plant that field.?

Temperature is a driving force for many processes at the farm level and its variation from one field to the next and across the seasons makes it a complicated parameter to monitor.??

Many farmers go around their farm at critical periods of the season to get an overview of the status of each field, such as in spring when multiple fields are planted. Visual inspections and in-field soil sampling are very time-consuming activities for farmers. It is very difficult for them to have a clear view of the situation over the whole field, and even more so at the farm level.??

When a maize crop (and most other crops) is planted, it is crucial to have a homogenous emergence and establishment across the whole field. Differences in crop growth stages within a field can lead to more competition between plants, which has a strong impact on yield.??

Shortage of labour, increasing size of farm areas, variable weather patterns and rising costs of inputs are making it even more crucial for farmers to be able to inspect all of their fields as fast as possible.? They also need to be able to have the right information to make the right decisions.? Planting the wrong field at the wrong time can result in poor crop establishment, meaning that the grower must replant the whole field, massively impacting their profitability.?

?Comprehensive monitoring of field temperatures and moisture is achievable with soil temperature and moisture sensors in each field, but this is not an affordable solution. Variations in topography and soil type can create differences in surface temperature across a field, making them difficult to measure using soil and weather sensors alone.?Current satellites provide LST at a spatial resolution of 1km per pixel, which makes it difficult to use on a field-by-field basis.?

Enabling farmers to have scalable and frequent measurement of temperature across the whole field and farm is one of the goals of constellr.???

Collecting and analysing more data on field temperatures and water cycles will help us to understand what is happening in fields and make better agronomic decisions.? That is why at constellr, we are developing thermal infrared and hyperspectral satellite solutions that will deliver the data that will help the agricultural industry to understand and overcome the climatic challenges of the future.?

That’s why we have developed celestr, a product delivering high resolution, accurate and frequent satellite derived land surface temperature that can be easily consumed and utilised across agriculture and other industries. celestr captures LST at a resolution of 50 metres per pixel, providing data that measures the variation within a field to derive actionable but also scalable insights. ?

For more information about our service, feel free to get in touch with our sales team ([email protected]) or drop us a message on LinkedIn.