Following its ending of OptiGro, Deere sold the imagery company, GeoVantage, back to its original owners. Now, GeoVantage has partnered with Pinnacle Ag Technologies (PAT) to continue to distribute imagery for the agricultural market across the US.
Spotting hidden problems
Aerial imagery has proven to be beneficial. For example, it helped pinpoint areas in soybean fields where iron chlorosis was a problem because of high pH.
“Grid sampling wasn’t accurate enough to map it out, but the imagery caught it,” says Blackmer. It also revealed that those high pH levels contributed to anhydrous ammonia losses when corn was grown in those same areas.
“Aerial imagery is kind of like a yield map,” says Blackmer. “A yield map tells you more than you knew before, but it still doesn’t give you all the answers.”
And, according to Blackmer, an aerial image can raise even more questions than a yield monitor because it provides a lot finer detail.