FLIR Systems has published a new application note that describes how scientists at the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility, CSIRO Agriculture & Food, Canberra (Australia) used a FLIR A645sc thermal imaging camera to capture and record thermal distributions and variations in crop canopies.
The application note describes how the Australian researchers developed a high resolution aerial thermography solution for the rapid measurement of crop canopy temperature in the field. The CSIRO research demonstrates how canopy temperature is a strong indicator of how well a plant is managing its water use through stomatal responses to environment conditions such as drought or salinity levels. The high resolution and high throughput capability of the HeliPod™ thermal imaging system, which incorporates the FLIR thermal imaging camera, enables small differences in temperature to be detected between plant varieties making it a powerful phenotyping tool for large-scale experiments.
Using the HeliPod™ thermal imaging system – CSIRO are screening over 500,000 plots per year with the ultimate aim of providing data to allow the development of new crop varieties more resilient to climatic changes.
