NDVI Mapping – Golf Management, Wineries & Farms | St Louis Aerial Photography & Video

NDVI Drone

Take The Temperature of Your Golf Course, Winery or Farm Crop.

NDVI imaging provides an in-season checkup. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is an indicator that can be used to analyze live green vegetation.

Checkups with your doctor are designed to avert a major health issue. Thermal imaging does the same for your property.

To determine a field’s stress level, look at an aerial photo that shows the variance in ground temperature. A cooler area is less stressed; the warmer the ground area, the more it is stressed.

We’ve been able to use color photos, NDVI maps and now thermal images as scouting aids and as tools to help define and refine management zones.

NDVI imaging is just emerging as a tool for golf courses, wineries and farms because the high-tech camera equipment that’s required is now available and easier to utilize.

NDVI cameras measure the energy emitted by the vegetation to produce infrared images, which are then processed to apply the scaling to show the variation in the area. The cameras can work just as well in the darkness of night. NDVI maps show a measure of ground area health with near-infrared images that rely primarily on reflected light from the sun and amplify changes in color.

Our camera has the ability to decipher differences of up to three-hundredths of a degree Celsius. The image is then scaled down to a narrow temperature spectrum and a color palate is applied to assess the variation.

With these images, you can see the problem areas of the golf course, and then go out and address these specific areas. This information will help assign different levels of fertilizer, irrigation and pesticides.

NDVI Mapping for golf courses, wineries and farms

The green shows the healthy areas of the course. The yellow areas document the unhealthy areas that need attention. The red areas show vegetation dormancy, roads, dirt and buildings.