FieldView Field Health Imagery Frequently Asked Questions

This document addresses frequently asked questions regarding FieldView™ Field Health Imagery.

• FieldView’s™ Field Health imagery is an easy-to-access tool that contains consistent high-quality satellite imagery for your fields. There are 3 image types provided in Field Health Imagery; Vegetation, Scouting, and True Color.

• Vegetation Image: This image is generated using the Climate Crop Index (CCI) which calculates current green vegetative biomass (plant growth).

   

  • The CCI is a vegetation health index that is similar to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), but with a few key differences. Like NDVI, it represents the green biomass content (vegetation health) in the field. CCI has also been engineered to have a better correlation with end of season corn yield.

     

  • In addition, CCI has been corrected for soil background impact and is less prone to saturation (losing variability at very high biomass) than NDVI. This ensures it is more accurate than NDVI at measuring biomass early in the season (when more ground is visible) and later in the season (when biomass is very high).

• Scouting Image: This image helps you quickly identify areas of your field recommended for scouting by amplifying variability identified within the Vegetation Image. This allows you to quickly prioritize scouting needs based on the biomass indicated in your scouting images.

   

  • FieldView scouting images provide a more accurate representation of field conditions allowing the image to more precisely focus on key threat areas within a field.

     

  • Scouting maps are generated using the CCI vegetative map as its source. It uses five colors that are centered on the median field health condition.

    • Red represents the potential low green biomass area and dark green represents the high green biomass comparing to the median field condition.

       

  • Field Health Imagery allows you to quickly sort through your images based the images provided.

     

  • Low Biomass %  - This indicator, located within Field Health Imagery and on each image context card, will quickly tell you the potential low green biomass area that the scouting image is showing for your field.

• True Color Image: This image provides you the ability to see a real-world view of your field, which is helpful in comparing to your Scouting and Vegetation images as well as using to find any other impediments such as small / thin clouds / shadows that escape our proprietary cloud & shadow detection algorithm.

• Enhanced Scouting Maps:

  • FieldView™ includes improved Scouting images that provide a more accurate representation of field conditions allowing the image to more precisely focus on key threat areas within a field.

    • Low Biomass - This indicator, located within Field Health Imagery  and on each image context card, will quickly tell you the percentage of low biomass (red) that the Scouting image is showing for your field and allows you to prioritize scouting activities.

    • Red areas represent lower biomass areas based on the plant growth indicated from the Vegetation Image

       

• Crops Supported: Field Health Imagery works with most green vegetation through the majority of the growing season.

   

• Cumulative Rainfall Indicator: FieldView includes an indicator of rainfall for your fields on both the Field Health Imagery Field Card and the Context Cards that can be found after selecting a field. You will see cumulative rainfall amounts from either your planting date or from the calendar year start if no planting data is available.

   

• Growing Degree Units (GDU’s): Calculated based on the image acquisition date and displayed next to each image when a planting date is provided. For daily updated GDU’s, please see the weather information for a specific field.

• Our Field Health imagery sources imagery from multiple image providers, instead of just one, to arm you with the most up-to-date image of your field. Then, we use proprietary science to remove clouds and shadows wherever possible, and evaluate the level of biomass in your fields using the Climate Crop Index.  Compared to other imagery providers who use NDVI, the Climate Crop Index greatly increases the consistency of images that reflect variation in your mid- and late-season crop growth, when it can be hard to distinguish differences in vegetation. This means that you have more representative and actionable images of your fields to take action on potential yield threats.

• European Space Agency provides imagery for FieldView™.

   

• We collect the most current raw imagery data available. The data we receive from our providers is not just a simple photograph of your field, but rather a number of data layers that are translated into a color scale representing plant biomass.

• Users can expect to see new imagery during the typical growing season for their particular region (U.S. typically receives imagery from April through October).

• FieldView provides historical imagery for the last three years for Field Health Imagery (FHI) and four years of FHI on fields that have FieldView Seed Scripts when a new field is created.

• Images will be created within 24 hours of newly created or updated field boundaries.

• The sensors we are using to acquire imagery will provide data to our engineering team multiple times a week. Actual availability of the imagery for a particular field & geography is dependent on cloud coverage. Our goal is to deliver at least 2 images per month to any field in the world, with an average service expectancy of 1 image per week.

• If more than half of the field is cloud-covered when the satellite is collecting imagery, an image will not display.

• We currently do not have an indication to show that an image cannot be generated. 

• Note: Especially during Spring time, images are often cloudy. We cannot create an image with over 50% of the field covered. 

• All satellite imagery will be 10 meters or higher resolution.

• The number of images you will receive for each field is dependent on cloud cover and weather patterns.

• Users can expect to view historic Field Health images for newly created or imported field boundaries within 24 hours in supported geographies.

• When field boundaries are edited during the current Field Health season, new images are generated for the current season.

   

• When field boundaries are edited outside of the current FHA season, Field Health images will not be updated to reflect the new boundaries.

• FieldView provides enhanced cloud and shadow removal which removes any parts of the FHA image that have been impacted by clouds or shadows.

• No. The raw image cannot be downloaded.  The images are accessible within your account for the duration of your FieldView™ account subscription.

   

• When using the FieldView™ app or FieldView™ Cab app, you can download a PDF Report or take a screenshot of the Field Health image. This can be easily shared by email or text directly from the app.