Crop-Area Estimates from Landsat; Transition from Research And Development to Timely Results

The report describes how NASA earth resources monitoring satellites, Landsat II and III, were used with conventional USDA groundgathered data to estimate planted crop areas for the 1978 Iowa corn and soybean crops. Estimates that used Landsat data and ground data jointly were substantially more precise than those made from ground data alone. These estimates were one of several data sources used in determining the official year end Annual Crop Summary for Iowa issued January 16, 1979, by USDA's Crop Reporting Board. Problems associated with total project cost, timely delivery of Landsat data to the USDA, and cloud cover must be solved prior to any planning for an operational program.