Rapid Monitoring of Maize Plant Status Using UAV-Based Multispectral and Hyperspectral Data

Precision agriculture (PA) can represent an effective and efficient way of implementing agricultural management systems to increase production and sustainability. In particular, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with different sensors are becoming increasingly relevant in PA studies because they provide high-resolution data for detecting useful indicators of plant health and crop production. Hence, this study is focused on the possibility of using multispectral and hyperspectral imagery from UAVs for rapid monitoring of maize plant status under different mineral and organic fertilizer treatments. The results of this study indicate that UAV data allow us to obtain important information on the growth and nutritional status of corn plants, with similar detail to ground measurements but in a faster and less labor-intensive manner. This highlights the importance of precision agriculture in improving the fertilization management of corn crops to increase yields sustainably.