• Mr. James G. Thomas (PI) - Extension Agricultural Engineering, Mississippi State University
• Dr. Alan Blaine (Co-PI) - Extension Agronomist, Plant and Soil Sciences, Mississippi State University

This project is to verify in production fields remotely sensed data that would indicate areas of stress. This will be done in Soybean fields that are currently enrolled in the SMART (Soybean Management by Application of Research and Technology) Program. GPS systems will be used to locate the coordinates of areas indicated as stressed, the stress will be identified in the field if possible, if not, plant samples will be sent to the Plant Pathology lab at MSU for identification of what the problem is. It is hoped that this project will help with field scouting. Other data that will be collected is topographic maps of each field, grid soil samples and yield maps. The field data collected will be analyzed using GIS systems to see if there is a correlation between yield decline areas versus problems identified by remotely sensed data, or if they can be explained by other field characteristics measured. Also, there will be comparisons of elevation and fertility levels with problems identified in the field to see if there is a relationship between any of that data.

There will be eight production fields in the project that are also in the SMART program. Five of the fields will be irrigated and three will be dryland production fields.

It is anticipated that the results from this project will help determine if remotely sensed data is useful in field scouting. If it is useful, the some conclusions can be drawn as to what agriculture could afford to pay for such technology and if it is economical.