BRETON, Alta. — If your crop is the same colour as a John Deere tractor, chances are it’s healthy, says University of Alberta researcher Dick Puurveen.
It was a combination of a love of photography and new developments in technology that sent Puurveen on his quest to see if colour could be a measurement of plant health.
“I wanted to know if there was a correlation between photography and GreenSeeker technology as a visual indicator of plant health,” said Puurveen.
He particularly wanted to know if the wavy histogram lines on the back of his digital camera could tell him the same information as a more expensive GreenSeeker variable rate nitrogen sensor.
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“I’ve always been intrigued by photography,” said Puurveen, who used the historic University of Alberta Breton plots for his research.
The camera histogram shows tonal distribution of an image categorizing the picture into pixel groups.
Using a combination of GreenSeeker variable rate technology and his digital camera to measure the plant colour, Puurveen showed colour could be a good measurement of plant health.
“The green of a John Deere is indicative of a very healthy plant,” said Puurveen.
“If your plants aren’t looking like your tractor, what’s wrong?”
While colour can tell farmers if their plants are healthy, it can’t tell them what’s wrong if the plant is not dark green.
Puurveen said the colour of a plant is a function of type, variety and the environment, but it could also be hail damage, herbicide damage, water deficiency, weed infestation or disease.
“Farmers can use intuition and knowledge of the field to determine why there are a number of differences across their fields,” he said.
