A new crop-sensing technology may be capable of predicting crop yields to within 0.5% accuracy.

This was the results of a new Agri-EPI-supported trial which took place on Bielgrange Farm in East Lothian, Scotland.

Bielgrange comprises of 350ha of lowland tillage land and 240ha of hill land with a beef herd running between both.

As part of Agri-EPI’s Satellite Farm programme, farmer Niall Jeffrey of Bielgrange Farm helped develop and evaluate Dark Technologies’ service, which uses satellite and drones to monitor crops, diagnose growth problems and predict yield.

Dark Horse’s prediction of yield from Niall’s field of second winter wheat was accurate to within less than 0.5%.

Drone sensor

“We chose a difficult field for the trial where the crop was poorly established. The open canopy enabled weeds to establish which we couldn’t treat without damaging the crop” Niall said.

“Dark Horse remotely programmed a drone mission. All I had to do was go to the field and press start then, when it finished the mission, upload the memory card online to Dark Horse. We initially predicted a yield of around 8t/ha and revised this throughout the growing season as Dark Horse showed us how things were progressing,” he continued.

The sensors are attached to drones.

“Dark Horse’s ultimate prediction, made three weeks before harvest, was 6.4t/ha and the actual result was 6.43t/ha. Going forward, the prediction could help me with the management of harvest storage and forward selling. We were impressed with the accuracy of the results. I'm intrigued to see what else it can do,” Niall concluded.

Dark Horse

Jared Bainbridge, founder and chief executive of Dark Horse Technologies said: “What we were able to achieve with Niall is a great example of our service. Feature analysis allows us to monitor the geometric growth trajectory of each plant in the field over time”.

“We can gauge each individual plant’s performance to understand the ideal size and shape of a crop at any point in its lifecycle and can benchmark each plant’s performance,” she concluded.

Niall and Dark Horse are now preparing for more trials, including a field scale seed treatment trial and the measurement of grass output from a paddock grazing system for cattle next summer.