Cloud-free Biomass

Cloud-free Biomass  is an industry first. It is the only known product available that can provide daily, up-to-date, field zone specific biomass images unimpeded by cloud cover.

The Cloud-free Biomass product:

  • is specifically designed for agricultural crops
  • provides daily images of biomass estimations
  • is available at high resolution (10 m)

 

Due to this high spatial and temporal resolution, VanderSat Cloud-free Biomass opens up the opportunity for continuous monitoring of crop conditions, an option that Earth Observation systems in the optical domain simply cannot provide.

WhatCloud-freeBiomasscandoforyou

  • Crop performance monitoring:
    • different amplitude and timing of growth for each crop
      (biomass patterns show the difference between crops over time)
    • clear harvest events
    • exposes weak spots in your field
  • Increases efficiency of agricultural inputs
  • Improves timing of seeding
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Howdoesitwork

Cloud-free Biomass is a remote sensing product developed in partnership by BASF Digital Farming Solutions. It uses active and passive microwave technology, along with satellite images, to accurately measure above-ground crop biomass regardless of cloud cover and at high resolution (10mx10m).

There is no other globally available and fully operational product like Cloud-free Biomass that observes biomass with this revisit time, accuracy and spatial resolution. It integrates three different satellite products together – VanderSat’s patented retrieval method for passive microwave technology, active microwave from the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-1 satellite and optical images from its Sentinel-2 satellite.

VanderSat then uses its expertise in remote sensing to interpret the output from these combined data sources to provide a reliable measure of crop biomass. We provide a reliable and continuous data stream, which is supported by an established, effective API for data transfer and a dedicated infrastructure team. This means reliable data can be made available at near real time.

Cloud-free Biomass is extremely reliable and has been extensively tested in three regions – Europe, North America and South America.

Unlike Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) biomass images from satellites Cloud-free Biomass measures biophysical parameters and water content in vegetation continually to accurately calculate all stages of crop growth during the entire growing season.

Cloud-freeBiomassvs.NDVI

  • NDVI measures only spectral greenness, so if the canopy greenness saturates, no further growth will be detected underneath the crop canopy. The Cloud-free Biomass, on the other hand, also looks at the water content within the vegetation so it can continue accurately to measure crop growth at all stages of the growing season.
  • NDVI is also not available on cloudy days, whereas the microwave components used to construct the Cloud-free Biomass can, ensuring that daily updates on field status are available independent of the weather conditions. Since both metrics measure similar things, the relationship between the two products is strong, with similar trends in the two-time series.

And there is more.

Not only for Biomass we provide highly reliable data. Also for Soil Moisture, Land Surface Temperature and Vegetation Optical Depth we retrieve satellite microwave measurements, globally and daily.

We understand we got your attention here.

Contact me to discuss possibilities with Cloud-free Biomass in your business.

Arjen Bakker
Director of Agri, Food, & Commoditiesabakker@vandersat.com