Back to search

BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram

NordForsk: Upscaling crop performance monitoring by linking satellite and field biosignatures

Alternative title: Oppskalering av avling overvåking ved koblling til satellitt- og feltbiosignaturer

Awarded: NOK 2.5 mill.

Climate change is a global challenge for agriculture providing food for the growing population. Northern Europe will likely have more important role in the food production in the future, but a challenge is to find out how different crop plants will be adapted to changing climate conditions. The UPSCALE project will increase understanding on resilience in Nordic crop production by unravelling links between the different spatial levels of crop monitoring from the single plants via the field to the level of satellites monitoring large agricultural areas. The project will ensure that better and more accurate information can be obtained from satellite imaging for the agricultural use. In the consortium, Nordic-Baltic academic institutions from Sweden, Finland, Norway and Lithuania are joining forces to conduct research and technological development. The Norwegian partners from the Arctic University of Norway (UiT) and The Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO) will contribute to the planned field experiments in the Arctic Norway with analysing growth and quality of forages timothy and red clover, and potato compared to the spectral signatures collected from satellite. They also are responsible of controlled growth experiments at the Climate laboratory in Tromsø, in which the same crop plants will be grown under different temperature conditions mimicking the predicted temperature changes. The Norwegian agriculture sector will benefit from the results of the project that aims to input for more climate resilient agriculture with the help of remote sensing and improved crop modelling.

Changing climate and degrading agricultural land are global challenges for agriculture. These pressing issues will increase the pressure on agriculture providing food for world population. The Nordic-Baltic region is predicted to encounter larger changes than the global average in temperature and precipitation due to climate change, which will affect the agricultural production. Automatized monitoring of the crop performance out in the field can be utilized for measuring different agricultural traits such as yield, but to be truly efficient it needs to be upscaled and cover large areas. This can only be done by remote sensing by satellites which is a rapidly expanding technology with increased precision. For this we need to know more about the links between the different spatial levels of crop monitoring from the single plants via the field to the level of satellites monitoring large agricultural areas. The UPSCALE project will ensure that better and more accurate information can be obtained from satellite imaging. In the UPSCALE consortium, Nordic-Baltic academic institutions (SLU, LAMMC, UH, UiT and NIBIO) are joining forces to conduct research and technological development. The Norwegian partners will contribute to the planned field experiments in the Arctic Norway with analysing growth and quality of forages timothy and red clover, and potato compared to the spectral signatures collected from satellite (WP2, WP3). They also are responsible of controlled growth experiments at the Climate laboratory in Tromsø, in which the same crop plants will be grown under different temperature conditions mimicking the predicted temperature changes (WP4). The results of all experiments will be integrated in WP5. The project will benefit Nordic and Baltic agriculture by mobilizing science and innovation capacity creating a more climate resilient agriculture with the help of remote sensing and improved crop modelling.

Publications from Cristin

No publications found

No publications found

No publications found

No publications found

Funding scheme:

BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram