Wild oats are a kind of grass weed and one of the greatest enemies of certain grains such as barley, rye and wheat. Wild oats compete with these crops by taking their water, light and nutrients and their density can double in just a year, causing production losses reaching up to 40%. The AGR124 research group, made up of members from the Department of Graphic and Geomatics Engineering at the University of Cordoba and the Spanish National Research Council’s Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, performed a study that predicts the growth of this weed among wheat crops, with an aim to optimize the use of herbicides.
Wild oats are a kind of grass weed and one of the greatest enemies of certain grains such as barley, rye and wheat. Wild oats compete with these crops by taking their water, light and nutrients and their density can double in just a year, causing production losses reaching up to 40%. The AGR124 research group, made up of members from the Department of Graphic and Geomatics Engineering at the University of Cordoba and the Spanish National Research Council’s Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, performed a study that predicts the growth of this weed among wheat crops, with an aim to optimize the use of herbicides.
The system is based on what is known as precision agriculture, a concept that emerged using new technology like sensors, drones and GPS navigators, and the idea is based on observing and managing crops in order to apply only the necessary resources at the right time, thus avoiding unnecessary high costs and environmental damage. Specifically, the research used very high spatial resolution multispectral satellite images, able to gather data with spatial details in regions of the electromagnetic spectrum different from those in the range of visible light, meaning it can obtain information that the human eye cannot detect.
Along with this technology, the group analyzed four different plots of wheat for two seasons. After verifying that there had indeed been an increase in the weeds, as pointed out by the head researcher of the study, Isabel Castillejo, they confirmed that these weeds grew in patches, which means that they are good candidates for the use of weedkillers in specific locations, instead of applying them all over the entire plot.
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