Analysis of Plant Height, Crop Cover, and Biomass of Forage Maize Grown on Reclaimed Land Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Technology

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and sensor technologies are rapidly developing and being usefully utilized for spatial information-based agricultural management and smart agriculture. Until now, there have been many difficulties in obtaining production information in a timely manner for large-scale agriculture on reclaimed land. However, smart agriculture that utilizes sensors, information technology, and UAV technology and can efficiently manage a large amount of farmland with a small number of people is expected to become more common in the near future. In this study, we evaluated the productivity of forage maize grown on reclaimed land using UAV and sensor-based technologies. This study compared the plant height, vegetation cover ratio, fresh biomass, and dry biomass of maize grown on general farmland and reclaimed land in South Korea. A biomass model was constructed based on plant height, cover ratio, and volume-based biomass using UAV-based images and Farm-Map, and related estimates were obtained. The fresh biomass was estimated with a very precise model (R-2=0.97, root mean square error [RMSE]=3.18 t/ha, normalized RMSE [nRMSE]=8.08%). The estimated dry biomass had a coefficient of determination of 0.86, an RMSE of 1.51 t/ha, and an nRMSE of 12.61%. The average plant height distribution for each field lot was about 0.91 m for reclaimed land and about 1.89 m for general farmland, which was analyzed to be a difference of about 48%. The average proportion of the maize fraction in each field lot was approximately 65% in reclaimed land and 94% in general farmland, showing a difference of about 29%. The average fresh biomass of each reclaimed land field lot was 10 t/ha, which was about 36% lower than that of general farmland (28.1 t/ha). The average dry biomass in each field lot was about 4.22 t/ha in reclaimed land and about 8 t/ha in general farmland, with the reclaimed land having approximately 53% of the dry biomass of the general farmland. Based on these results, UAV and sensor-based images confirmed that it is possible to accurately analyze agricultural information and crop growth conditions in a large area. It is expected that the technology and methods used in this study will be useful for implementing field-smart agriculture in large reclaimed areas.