Remote sensing and multispectral imaging will revolutionize many aspects of human society, not least when it comes to plants and plant-derived products.
In November 2019 SASUF (Sweden-South Africa Universityn Forum) granted a network project around various aspects of plants and remote sensing.
In agriculture these novel techniques are already now making an impact on plant breeding and precision agriculture. In field conditions we are today able to detect weeds, crop nutrient deficiency and some plant diseases based on remote sensing (Chawade, et al 2019). Similar rapid advances for monitoring are seen in food production to ensure quality and safety in an efficient way. In the urban environment remote sensing and multispectral imaging could help to keep track on the state of highly valuable urban trees.
In this proposal we would like to focus on techniques used for remote sensing and non-invasive imaging with the focus on three areas:
- The agricultural landscape and primary production
- Food stuff
- Urban green spaces
We are now forming a Sweden-South Africa discussion group around these three areas consisting of Dr Paul Williams (Stellenbosch University), Harald Klein (SLU); Dr Per Schubert (Malmö University); Dr Lerato Matsaunyane (ARC Pretoria) and Prof Timothy Dube (University of the Western Cape).
This group will among other thing lead up to a SASUF Satellite event in the 14:00-16:30 5th of May in Malmö (media evolution center) with the title “Let’s make more sense of it – non-invasive sensing for food, agriculture and urban green spaces”. More on that later.