Artificial intelligence, satellite imagery and sensor cameras are feeding valuable data into a PhD student's research at Agriculture Victoria's Horsham SmartFarm that could see greater yields and efficiencies for pulse growers at harvest time.
University of Melbourne PhD student Danielle Yidan Tang is using the technologies on lentil and faba bean crops, supervised by Agriculture Victoria senior researchers Dr Cassandra Walker (Crop Quality) and Dr Glenn Fitzgerald (Crop Agronomy).
'We are monitoring lentil and faba bean crops from flowering to harvest using sensors and cameras in combination with satellite images to create a preharvest spatial map of grain quality variation across growers' paddocks,' Ms Tang said.
'These maps give us a real-time indication of grain quality traits such as colour, grain size and protein and illustrate which sections of crops are harvest ready.
'The technologies could also be used in a glasshouse environment to optimise breeding research.'
Ms Tang is a remote sensing specialist and recently returned from a 4-week Chemometrics study trip to Denmark funded by Agriculture Victoria, Grains Research Development Corporation and the University of Copenhagen. She presented her PhD project to chemometric experts and fellow researchers.
Ms Tang valued the opportunity to meet researchers from around the world and exchange knowledge in this innovative area of data science and how it applies to her research.
'I am thankful to the University of Copenhagen for their additional support and upskilling me to develop mathematical algorithms that help predict grain quality in-field,' said Ms Tang.
Dr Cassandra Walker said Ms Tang's research, while still in the 'proof of concept' phase is showing promising commercial benefits for the grain industry from gate to plate.
'Growers could harvest the best quality to achieve the highest prices; a win-win for marketers, traders and manufacturers.'
'Agriculture Victoria's Horsham SmartFarm is situated in the heart of the grain growing region and is an excellent multi-disciplinary learning environment for agriculture PhD students like Danielle,' said Dr Walker.
