HyNutri study site in Italy

ESA-funded research shows that the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and the Italian Prisma mission could be used to monitor the nutritional content of staple crops. This could, for example, help farmers take appropriate steps to boost the quality of their crops as they grow.

Scientists from the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the National Research Council of Italy led research into the potential of using satellites to monitor crop nutrients over large areas and that would give sufficient time for farmers to intervene with fertilisers or other agricultural practices before they actual harvest.

The team selected a test site in the Po Valley in Italy, over the Bonifiche Ferraresi farm, in Jolanda di Savoia, Ferrara. The most promising nutrient predictions were obtained for concentrations of potassium (K), phosphorous (P), magnesium (Mg) and iron (Fe), particularly in soybean and wheat.

The team’s results have been published in the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment.

Read full story: Measuring nutrition in crops from space