source: Farm and Food Report
In a dry year, it could help ranchers identify where they are more likely to find adequate pastures or supply of hay; it could help fertilizer companies determine where demand is likely to be stronger because of high growth conditions.
The Crop Condition Assessment Program (CCAP) is a groundbreaking on-line resource developed and maintained by Statistics Canada in collaboration with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada that has recently been made available free of charge to the public-at-large.
Ted O’Brien is an Agroclimate Specialist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Regina.
“The CCAP is a web-based application, providing weekly cropland and pasture monitoring for the regions of western Canada and the United States northern great plains throughout the growing season. It uses a combination of satellite imagery and geographical information system (GIS) resources to create relatively detailed maps which give an idea of the vegetative vigour in units of one-square kilometer—each translated on the computer screen as a pixel.”
Users can zoom in or out on-line to cover the desired range, thanks to an Internet map server (IMS), and find out what the sensors have evaluated over a one-kilometer grid for any determined region.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) series of satellites carrying Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) records images of the entire earth's surface twice daily to generate the maps.
“Although designed for atmospheric observations and weather forecasting, there are two AVHRR spectral bands (red and infrared) that have proven to be extremely useful to the CCAP for vegetation monitoring,” explains O’Brien.
“Through this, we can compare the vegetative vigour in a specific location over time. The images are converted into an average for that week. The system notes the highest reading during that period.”
This index emphasizes differences between stressed and unstressed vegetation, providing an indication of plant health—something that can be affected by frost, lack of fertilizer, or late seeding. The higher the index value, the healthier the vegetation is. The normal value vas actually created using the period from 1993 to 2004.
Demands by private industry, grain marketing agencies, agri-business, and governments to produce accurate, timely production forecasts well in advance of statistical survey estimates, have encouraged CCAP to develop this yield forecast tool and make it available to the public.
According to O’Brien, “this resource allows industry players to become more strategic in the way they do business or carry out their activities.
“When we look the system right now, we can tell in real time that Alberta and Saskatchewan are generally having a great crop year, except perhaps for a portion of the Saskatchewan southwest. We can see how the vegetative vigour values are dramatically lower in Manitoba south of Winnipeg because of Red River flooding. This is a tool that people can use in conjunction with other information to achieve certain goals and objectives.”
For instance, highway traffic planners might be able to predict higher road maintenance costs in areas where higher vegetative values might generate more intensive grain transportation activities.
Just a word of caution however, lack of access to high bandwidth Internet service may make it more difficult for individuals relying on dial-up Internet to make use of the service, but the resource is there for anyone to use.
Getting the big picture from space has never this easy.
You can start the application by following this link:
http://www25.statcan.ca:8081/ccap/overview.jsp
In a dry year, it could help ranchers identify where they are more likely to find adequate pastures or supply of hay; it could help fertilizer companies determine where demand is likely to be stronger because of high growth conditions.
The Crop Condition Assessment Program (CCAP) is a groundbreaking on-line resource developed and maintained by Statistics Canada in collaboration with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada that has recently been made available free of charge to the public-at-large.
Ted O’Brien is an Agroclimate Specialist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Regina.
“The CCAP is a web-based application, providing weekly cropland and pasture monitoring for the regions of western Canada and the United States northern great plains throughout the growing season. It uses a combination of satellite imagery and geographical information system (GIS) resources to create relatively detailed maps which give an idea of the vegetative vigour in units of one-square kilometer—each translated on the computer screen as a pixel.”
Users can zoom in or out on-line to cover the desired range, thanks to an Internet map server (IMS), and find out what the sensors have evaluated over a one-kilometer grid for any determined region.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) series of satellites carrying Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) records images of the entire earth's surface twice daily to generate the maps.
“Although designed for atmospheric observations and weather forecasting, there are two AVHRR spectral bands (red and infrared) that have proven to be extremely useful to the CCAP for vegetation monitoring,” explains O’Brien.
“Through this, we can compare the vegetative vigour in a specific location over time. The images are converted into an average for that week. The system notes the highest reading during that period.”
This index emphasizes differences between stressed and unstressed vegetation, providing an indication of plant health—something that can be affected by frost, lack of fertilizer, or late seeding. The higher the index value, the healthier the vegetation is. The normal value vas actually created using the period from 1993 to 2004.
Demands by private industry, grain marketing agencies, agri-business, and governments to produce accurate, timely production forecasts well in advance of statistical survey estimates, have encouraged CCAP to develop this yield forecast tool and make it available to the public.
According to O’Brien, “this resource allows industry players to become more strategic in the way they do business or carry out their activities.
“When we look the system right now, we can tell in real time that Alberta and Saskatchewan are generally having a great crop year, except perhaps for a portion of the Saskatchewan southwest. We can see how the vegetative vigour values are dramatically lower in Manitoba south of Winnipeg because of Red River flooding. This is a tool that people can use in conjunction with other information to achieve certain goals and objectives.”
For instance, highway traffic planners might be able to predict higher road maintenance costs in areas where higher vegetative values might generate more intensive grain transportation activities.
Just a word of caution however, lack of access to high bandwidth Internet service may make it more difficult for individuals relying on dial-up Internet to make use of the service, but the resource is there for anyone to use.
Getting the big picture from space has never this easy.
You can start the application by following this link:
http://www25.statcan.ca:8081/ccap/overview.jsp
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