Integrating Drones into Weed Management on the Palouse

Farmers on the Palouse are increasingly spending more resources to manage weeds. Weed management, in part, requires fine scale knowledge of weed populations. Mapping weeds with drones is promising but requires knowledge of environmental variation and weed phenology. Application of drones in weed management is growing globally but local applications on the Palouse are limited. We will develop drone and multispectral image analysis protocols for mapping common weeds and work with multiple farms to understand the best timing of flights to create weed maps across fields with different crops and solar aspects. We hypothesize that a multispectral imagery and field scouting approach will improve weed mapping efficiency in large extent, rain-fed cropping systems such as the Palouse. Consistent mapping of weeds will open more opportunities for targeted application of biologically-intensive approaches to weed management and improved management outcome assessments.