From pest management to terrain visualization – Drone mapping with MicaSense series sensors

Rogers Family Coffee Co. uses MicaSense series sensors as tools to create new management methods on their research farm in Kona, Hawaii. Vegetation indexes allow them to track nutrient inputs, identify pest infestations, visualize mountainous terrain, and educate their network of farmers on research that is shaping the future of the industry.

To say that Rogers Family Company knows coffee is a serious understatement. Their family-owned coffee business has been in operation for over 40 years, with their SF Bay Coffee brand a staple at major retailers in the US. The Rogers Family Co. sources their coffee from their own farms in Mexico and Hawaii and from 32,000 other coffee growers in 11 different countries from Costa Rica to Rwanda to Indonesia. To keep up with demand, the company continuously monitors, manages, and forecasts production across continents and throughout the year. And the demand for high-quality coffee beans is only growing.

To experiment with new technology and advance their growing operations, Rogers Family Co. runs a 150-acre research farm, called the ‘Mamalahoa farm’, in the Kona District on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Kona District, with its ideal climate and soils, is famous for producing some of the best (and most expensive) coffee beans in the world. It is on this farm that the company first began monitoring their coffee plants with drones and MicaSense series sensors.

“We use the research farm to pioneer new tools and methods for coffee production,” says Andros Bracamontes, Research & Development Specialist for the Rogers Family Co. “Drones are allowing us to precisely map the entire farm on a regular basis and we are now aligning the imagery with our management strategy.”

Before drones, Mamalahoa staff had an extensive in-field monitoring regime – which means that they walked up and down hills. A lot.

“We used to have to hike around to monitor the fields, which can be a major challenge in the steep slopes of some of our farms. Now we can monitor by air in a fraction of the time and at an individual plant level,’’ says Andros.

Not only do the farm managers at Mamalahoa need more people to physically walk the fields, they also have to pay more for them –  a smaller workforce on the island means that labor costs are exceptionally high. Fertilizers and other inputs are also especially expensive in Hawaii because almost everything has to be shipped in by boat. These unique cost drivers were one reason the team decided to implement drones and multispectral sensors.

The first step in their program was to fly a drone equipped with the MicaSense series RedEdge to create vegetation health maps, and then use those maps to identify and establish individual management zones within each field. They then monitored each zone’s response to inputs and will adjust their application rates accordingly for each zone in order to lower input costs and more effective applications. Monitoring the field with the RedEdge rather than physical scouts also saved on labor costs.

Tracking pest issues is another key component of the drone program at Mamalahoa. Pests include root nematodes, boring beetles, as well as leaf rust infection in other countries (rust has not yet impacted Hawaii). Nematodes are especially problematic because they can reduce coffee production by 25% or more. Rather than physically walking their fields each day to monitor a nematode infestation, farm managers used imagery from the RedEdge to identify hot spots and treat accordingly, which saves time and money.

The team also uses imagery to visualize the climatic differences across the terrain. For example, Mamalahoa spans more than 1000ft (300m) elevation gain, resulting in a strong climatic gradient across the farm.

“It can be raining at the top of the farm and completely dry at the bottom,’ says Andros. “This type of gradient is common on our farms because coffee is grown in mountainous regions of the world.”

In an effort to better visualize the climatic gradient and make decisions that account for its effects, Mamalahoa managers use thermal imagery from the MicaSense series Altum sensor to map temperature and moisture differences across the farm. This allows them to make management decisions that not only take soil type and pests into account but also the plant’s individual location in the field.

In September, 150 farmers from all over the world flew to Hawaii to attend a three-day grower conference. With the help of language translators, groups of farmers were given hands-on experience with multispectral drone imagery, learning how to collect and visualize vegetation indices like NDVI.

Andros sums up the work by saying,  “We are learning from the past, analyzing our present challenges, and taking a look at the exciting future that certainly will change the coffee industry.”