K-State Leads International UAS Agricultural Research for Early Pest/Disease Detection
K-State unmanned aircraft technician Rich Brown prepares to launch a fixed wing UAS. The University recently received FAA approval to operate UAS statewide. Photo: Kansas State University Salina.
Kansas State University Salina and Manhattan campuses are leading an international project with Queensland Institute of Technology, the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries and the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to examine the use of unmanned aircraft systems in detecting pest insects and diseases in food crops before outbreaks happen.
The multimillion dollar project, “Optimizing Surveillance Protocols Using Unmanned Aerial Systems,” is funded by the Plant Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre, a group of governmental research institutions and universities in Australia and New Zealand supported by industry and government partners.
“In both Australia and the U.S., there is a lot of interest in the plant biosecurity field on how to increase the efficiency and detection rates of plant-based threats using emerging technologies,” says U.S. Principal Investigator Brian McCornack. “Unmanned aerial systems technologies are promising because they’re inexpensive and you can cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time.”
K-State will repeatedly monitor Federal Aviation Administration-sanctioned fields over the wheat growing season initially to target detection of the Russian wheat aphid and wheat stripe rust, invasive wheat pests. Images obtained by UAS will be compared and used to identify abnormalities that may signal pests or disease.
“Currently, early detection of an invasive pest requires a great amount of luck and sweat,” says McCornack. “Typically, a landowner has to make an educated guess about where to go in a large field to check for infested plants. It works, but if a farmer or scout has several thousand acres to manage, it’s not very time effective. Whereas with remote sensing, you can scan a wide area in a short amount of time.”
Researchers will also determine the best ways to manage the aerial imagery data for optimal use including comparing images taken from different heights from ground level through to satellite imagery.
“It’s important that we’re able to detect the next invasive pest,” says McCornack. “Since 2001, the invasive soybean aphid has changed how we manage much of the 75 million acres of soybean in the North Central U.S. We believe that using UAS and working closely with farmers and scouts to regularly monitor crops and look for those changes early on can reduce the likelihood of repeating what happened with the soybean aphid. Using this technology is not a guarantee, but it can help us understand how to quickly manage new pests that do establish.”
