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Monitoring Vineyards with Planet Dove Satellites
  • David Helman
David Helman
Johns Hopkins University

Corresponding Author:davidhelman.biu@gmail.com

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Abstract

Spectral-based vegetation indices (VI) have been shown to be good proxies of grapevine stem water potential (Ψstem), potentially assisting in irrigation-decision making of commercial vineyards. However, VI-Ψstem correlations are mostly reported at the leaf or canopy scales using sensors attached to leaves or very-high-spatial resolution images derived from sensors mounted on small airplanes or drones. Here, for the first time, we take advantage of the high spatial resolution (3-m), near-daily images acquired from Planet’s nano-satellites constellation to derive VI-Ψstem correlations at the vineyard scale. Weekly Ψstem were measured along the growing season of 2017 in six vines in 81 commercial vineyards and in 60 pairs of vines in a 2.4 ha experimental vineyard in Israel. The clip application programming interface (API), provided by Planet, and Google Earth Engine platform were used to derive spatially continuous time series of four VIs: GNDVI, NDVI, EVI, and SAVI in the 82 vineyards. Results show that per-week multivariable linear models using variables extracted from VI time series successfully tracked spatial variations in Ψstem across the experimental vineyard (Pearson’s-r = 0.45–0.84: N=60). A simple linear regression model enabled monitoring seasonal changes in Ψstem along the growing season in the vineyard (r = 0.80–0.82). Planet VIs and seasonal Ψstem data from the 82 vineyards were used to derive a ‘global’ model for in-season monitoring of Ψstem at the vineyard-level (r = 0.81: RMSE = 17.5%: N=970). The ‘global’ model, which requires only a few VI variables extracted from Planet images, may be used for real-time weekly assessment of Ψstem in Mediterranean vineyards, substantially reducing expenses of conventional monitoring efforts.