Thermal imaging measurement tracks crop canopy temperature

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. The FLIR A645/A655sc are high-resolution science grade LWIR cameras designed to help engineers, researchers, and scientists see and accurately quantify thermal patterns, leakage, dissipation, and other heat-related factors in equipment, products, and processes in real time.

The FLIR A645/655sc are equipped with an uncooled, maintenance free, Vanadium Oxide (VoX) microbolometer detector that produces 640x480 Pixels thermal images that are crisp and clear detailed images that are easy to interpret with high accuracy. The FLIR A645/655sc are able to make temperature differences as small as 30mK clearly visible.