Pastures from Space Update
Pastures from Space is a web based service that provides weekly Feed on Offer (FOO) and Pasture Growth Rate (PGR) information for the WA agricultural zone over the growing season which is based on remote sensing of 'greenness' and on-farm measurements of actual feed on offer. The project was jointly developed by CSIRO, Landgate and DPIRD, started in 2002. The service was suspended in 2018 but has since been re-released by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) in 2019.
The project partners have been working hard behind the scenes to build more functionality to the free public site, which at present only allows viewing of images but doesn’t have any interpretive functions.
DPIRD is close to testing and release of an additional feature which allows users to select their PIC or property identification number; and see the cumulative pasture production for the current season against the average, best and worst years, and view pixel level data for FOO and PGR for the season.
Ground truthing over this current season will evaluate the accuracy of using the Sentinel satellite imagery versus MODIS satellite imagery to estimate FOO and PGR. The exciting thing about this is that Sentinel imagery will allow detail down to a 20m x 20m (0.04ha) pixel on cloud free days, rather than the larger 250m x 250m (6.25ha) MODIS satellite pixels.
Other additional functionality is being developed by the project partners over the next 12 to 18 months and all of the FOO and PGR data will also be added to the public domain, meaning that private providers will be able to utilise the information to design client specific tools and outputs.
Visit the website to learn more about how Pastures from Space works and to view the current weekly maps for south West WA.