Drones & imagingAnnouncement

SIU field day demonstrates drone mapping and agricultural AI

Southern Illinois University brought drone mapping and agricultural AI demonstrations to its July field day, showing growers how aerial observations can support scouting and discussion of site-specific crop management practices.

By Adaptive AgroTech editorial deskSource date 21 Jul 2026Published on World 24 Oct 2026

False-colour NDVI imagery of a field captured with an unmanned aircraft. — Context image: an example of UAS-derived NDVI field imagery from 2014. Colours represent a vegetation index, not visible-light appearance. Not the dataset or results reported in this story. Credit: Stoermerjp / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0; Downsampled/recompressed for web delivery; full frame retained; no editorial image alterations.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale reported on 21 July 2026 on its Ag Field Day, held on 14 July. The event resumed after a three-year pause and combined a drone demonstration with research discussions covering weeds, cover crops and conservation practices.

Billy Ram and graduate student Samuel David demonstrated field mapping, explaining different roles for visible-light, multispectral and LiDAR observations. The discussion connected mapping and AI analysis with stand counts, crop stress and weed identification. The event was an outreach demonstration of tools and research directions, rather than a report of a single controlled trial quantifying financial or agronomic benefits for participating farms.

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