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Multispectral imagery: a tool in production management toolbox

Potato farmers hope real-time imagery will help expose and identify insect and disease issues.

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

October 29, 2019

10 Slides

Potato farmer Steve Barrett, Springlake Potatoes, Springlake, Texas, describes the multispectral images by Ceres Imaging as another tool in the decision toolbox.

Steve and his brother Bruce Barrett, who produce red and yellow potatoes in the sandy soils of Lamb and Bailey counties, are hoping the real-time imagery generated by Ceres will expose insect and disease issues before they have a chance to hurt potato yield or quality. 

While the Barrett brothers don't expect the aerial imagery to replace in-person inspections, they're hoping the layered pictures will reveal what they can't see. “The images are confirmation of what we’re doing or if we are missing something, even though we are driving by the fields all the time. We’re not trying to eliminate going out and looking; we’re still going to do that," Steve says.

“I think with most technologies you don’t know how you are going to use them for a while. We might end up using this in a way we don’t anticipate.” 

See, Potato farmers use real-time imagery to increase production efficiency  

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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