HAND-HELD RADIOMETRY AND IR-THERMOGRAPHY OF PLANT-DISEASES IN FIELD PLOT EXPERIMENTS

Experiments using hand-held instruments for remote sensing of field plots of agricultural crop plants demonstrated good correlation between spectral reflectance data and plant growth, green biomass and yield as well as infection by various leaf and root diseases. A light-weight hand-held instrument system based on an 8-channel Cropscan radiometer (500-850 nm) complemented with an Everest-4002 IR-thermometer for recording canopy temperature and other sensors for recording air temperature, relative air humidity and wind speed as well as a battery operated computer is described. The experiments have demonstrated a high potential of this version of remote sensing as a complement to conventional field plot experiment methods, for studies of plant growth and development, for predictions of yield, for early detection and quantifying of stress and diseases, but also to facilitate a better and more need-adapted disease control.