Technology provides access to daily and scalable images of plantation biomass

BASF Digital Farming GmbH, in partnership with VanderSat, will be the first companies to commercially offer farmers access to daily, scalable images of biomass, without interference from cloud coverage.

The two companies signed a commercial agreement, which provides for the integration of the product ‘Cloud-free Biomass’ from VanderSat, with BASF’s xarvio Field Manager solution Digital Farming .

Farmers will have daily access to high-quality images of crop biomass. Faster access to biomass images allows continuous monitoring of crop development, leading to better agronomic decisions. This optimizes production, saving time and money, as well as promoting sustainability in agriculture.

Collaboration to transform agriculture

O Cloud-free Biomass is the result of the close partnership and tests developed by the xarvio and VanderSat teams over the last two years. The new product achieved good results in tests in Germany, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Canada and Brazil in the 2019/20 harvest. It has high spatial resolution (10 meters x 10 meters) and offers a single, consistent metric of crop biomass. With this, farmers can compare the performance of different plots across a large area or even compare results in different harvests.

Daily and reliable measurement of crop biomass

By integrating three different satellite products, the Cloud-free Biomass uses VanderSat's patented retrieval method for microwave technology, along with active microwaves from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellite and optical imagery from its Sentinel-2 satellite. VanderSat then uses its remote sensing expertise to interpret the output from these data sources and provide a reliable daily measure of crop biomass.

Biomass images without cloud interference

In some parts of Europe, North and Latin America, biomass images are heavily obstructed by cloud cover. Sometimes it can take more than two weeks to receive a 'clean' picture of the biomass, which is often out of date because growing conditions have changed.

The images Cloud-free Biomass They are available daily and offer great benefits. Unlike satellite images Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI), which are not available on cloudy days and only measure spectral green, Cloud-free Biomass it also measures biophysical parameters and water content in vegetation, to continuously and accurately calculate all stages of crop growth, throughout the growing season.

Jeff Spencer, Global Technology and Data Lead at xarvio, comments: "Giving farmers faster access to reliable, quality biomass imagery enables greater oversight and helps reduce risk, ensuring any necessary action is taken almost immediately. We have sure that the Cloud-free Biomass will be well received by xarvio Field Manager customers and the agricultural sector."

"As a launch partner, xarvio gave VanderSat the opportunity to develop a cutting-edge product that fully meets farmers' needs. The product launch Cloud-free Biomass It's a big step for VanderSat toward a complete offering for the agricultural market. It is now possible to continuously monitor crop conditions, with an operational service available worldwide", says Arjen Bakker, Director of Agro, Food and Commodities at VanderSat.

In Brazil, the technology will provide gains in monitoring crop conditions. Ricardo Arruda, digital technical manager at xarvio, explains that some areas are constantly covered by clouds during the harvest. "We are increasing the frequency of satellite images available to Brazilian farmers, with a new biomass map made available daily regardless of weather conditions. In some regions of Brazil, clouds prevented the collection of these images throughout the harvest and when this happened, the farmer previously had no access to satellite maps of their crops, but from now on clouds will no longer be a problem. In practice, we will be able to provide Brazilian farmers with very high quality images of their crop fields every day, even on those very busy days. cloudy."

O Cloud-free Biomass it should be integrated with xarvio Field Manager by the end of March 2021 and will initially be available in North and Latin America. The commercial agreement between BASF Digital Farming Solutions GmbH and VanderSat covers Brazil, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Germany and Ukraine.