Food Solutions New England (FSNE) is a regional food systems learning-action network dedicated to advancing a sustainable New England food system. The FSNE network is organized around four interrelated activities:
A New England Food Vision, a bold vision that calls for our region to build the capacity to produce up to 70% of food that is produced in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner, that promotes health and is accessible by all New Englanders by 2060; New England state food planning initiatives; annual New England food summits and topical workshops; and related analysis, communication and visualization.
The UNH Sustainability Institute serves as the backbone organization for FSNE. Since its inception in 2006, FSNE has advanced its mission by linking a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous communication, and synergestic activities.
Hi Melissa, Welcome to Farm Hack! There is a lot of interest in using aircraft (and balloons and kites) to get aerial imagery for management and research purposes. There is an event in May in collaboration with public labs for the second year in a row focusing on how to best use open source imaging tools for agricultural purposes. More information can be found here
http://farmhack.net/forums/ifarm-imaging-agricultural-research-and-manag...
There is also a tool wiki to focus on the development and use of on farm imagery which I am sure you could add to as well -
http://farmhack.net/tools/ifarm-imaging-agricultural-research-and-manage...
Please feel free to edit and add to the wiki or starting some forum threads from the tool to kick off some more detailed discussion.
I am especially interested in the NDVI and spectrometry potential for rapid assessment of crop performance. There are some researchers here at UNH who are looking at using the spectrometer to get early warning of pests in orchards, and I am particularly interested in gathering data similar to what a Spad meter asses percent cover, identify species composition, and generate estimates of crop height.
I think that rapid data gathering is key to being able to implement adaptive farm management. Look forward to the dialog.