High-throughput phenotyping of drought-stress and Fusarium wilt in lettuce using UAV-based thermography

To advance RS techniques for precision agriculture applications, we propose to combine our recently developed OPtical TRapezoid Model (OPTRAM) for estimation of soil moisture from remotely-sensed drone and satellite shortwave infrared (SWIR) and near infrared (NIR) land surface reflectance with our new analytical net water flux model to determine actual crop water consumption (i.e., evapotranspiration). To evaluate and refine the new approach, we will collect and analyze readily available VENμS and Sentinel-2 satellite observations for the Yuma region and estimate crop water consumption for fields with available eddy covariance (EC) evapotranspiration flux and soil moisture measurements. A direct comparison with EC flux and in situ soil moisture measurements will allow us to determine the accuracy of the proposed approach and allow potential refinements.