Guillevic, P. E., B. Aouizerats, R. Burger, N. Den Besten, D. Jackson, M. Ridderikhoff, A. Zajdband, R. Houborg, T. E. Franz, G. P. Robertson, and R. De Jeu. 2024. Planet’s Biomass Proxy for monitoring aboveground agricultural biomass and estimating crop yield. Field Crops Research 316:109511.

In the context of increasing environmental change, monitoring crop conditions throughout the growing season is critical for agricultural management, risk mitigation and early assessment of food, feed, fuel and fiber production. Satellite Earth observations can provide frequent and spatially continuous measures of cropping systems to support informed agricultural decisions. However, current analysis-ready satellite data are based on optical observational systems that do not provide land surface information under cloudy conditions, and therefore cannot ensure a continuous and operational monitoring of dynamic systems such as crops. To fill this gap, Planet developed the Biomass Proxy product which provides a timely and analysis-ready relative measure of the above-ground crop biomass daily at 10 m spatial resolution. Based on Earth observations from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 constellations, the Biomass Proxy is a cloud-free vegetation monitoring product for agricultural management at scales varying from the intra-field to the national scale.

The objective of this study was to quantify the sensitivity of Planet’s Biomass Proxy to crop biomass dynamics and yield. Field data representative of various agricultural systems and climates from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Michigan State University were used to characterize the relationships between the Biomass Proxy and the biomass of corn, winter wheat and soybean fields. Results demonstrated the sensitivity of the Biomass Proxy to changes in crop fresh biomass throughout the growing season, and the potential of the product to detect rapid changes in plant growth due to agricultural practices or environmental stresses, such as nitrogen or water deficiencies. The Biomass Proxy was highly correlated with the plant fresh biomass (R2 > 0.9 for corn) allowing for near real-time monitoring of crop growth and management decisions such as irrigation water, fertilizer and fungicide applications depending on the crop. Using regressions, the Biomass Proxy was able to explain 80 % of the yield variance of agricultural fields one to two months before harvest, allowing marketing and logistic decisions to be made with a better knowledge of the crop status.

The Biomass Proxy is a unique satellite-based product used to characterize the various components of agricultural ecosystems, early detect crop growth anomalies, or assess crop yield. The Biomass Proxy provides real time information on crop conditions and environmental threats, helping mitigate risks by supporting agricultural decisions.

DOI: 10.1016/j.fcr.2024.109511

Associated Treatment Areas:

• MCSE Main Cropping Systems Experiment

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