Planet imagery overview

FarmQA is able to offer our subscribers access to high-cadence satellite imagery thanks to our partnership with Planet. Planet imagery can be a great way for you to remotely monitor crop health and productivity in your fields throughout the growing season. Check out the article below to learn more about how to setup and manage a Planet imagery subscription in FarmQA.

Imagery included with a Planet subscription

Subscribing fields to Planet imagery

Subscribing fields to Planet imagery

Imagery included with a Planet subscription

Included with your Planet imagery subscription of $1.25/acre for a year's worth of high cadence imagery are six imagery products: 

True color imagery

Imagery as it would appear to the naked eye, presented from a birds eye view. This imagery is best used for getting a baseline when comparing other imagery indexes. 

Modified soil adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI)

An index generated by comparing NIR and red band imagery that also takes into account any variability in readings caused by bare soil. This index was created to assess crop health from emergence to leaf development, during a point in the growing season when there is a lot of bare soil in the fields. 

Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)

An index generated by comparing near infra-red (NIR) and red band imagery used to assess crop growth and development. NDVI is one of the most commonly used imagery indexes used in agriculture today due to it's ease of calculation and interpretation. Essentially, NDVI calculates the amount of green light that is being reflected off of a surface, meaning the more green light that is reflected, the higher the index is. NDVI is generally most effective during the middle part of the growing season when crops are between leaf growth and development and biological maturity. 

Normalized difference red edge (NDRE) index

An index generated by comparing red-edge and red band imagery used to assess crop health. As crops approach biological maturity stop growing taller/broader and developing more leaves, they reach a sort of maximum amount of green light they can reflect, making NDVI a less useful crop health index. The red-edge light spectrum picks up on changes in plant chlorophyll content, making it a better indicator of crop health later in the season. 

Red-edge band imagery

This can be used to broadly assess crop health later in the growing season, after the crop has reached biological maturity. One use case for red-edge band imagery is assessing nitrogen deficiencies in crops. 

Red band imagery

This can be used to broadly assess crop health in the middle part of the growing season, between crop leaf development and biological maturity. 

Managing your Planet integration

• Log in to your FarmQA account from the web app if you aren't already.
• Click on the Settings icon, then click on the Organization tab.
• Make sure you've selected the root level of your enterprise in the left-hand side of the screen. If you have, scroll down the Details tab until you see the Planet integration section (pictured below).

• Manage your Planet integration in the following ways:
  1. Toggle on the switches corresponding to the Planet imagery products you want to be brought into your account. Map layers for each imagery product will be created automatically.
     • NOTE: you will need to have purchased FarmQA Analytics to access metrics created when toggling on metrics associated with each imagery product. 
  2. Set the maximum percent cloud cover you want for the imagery brought into your account. We recommend setting this no higher than 10%.
  3. Input the date you want imagery to backfill to. We offer a 5-year backfill with your purchase of a Planet imagery subscription. 
  4. Choose the fields you want to subscribe to Planet imagery. A more detailed explanation of how this works is provided below.

Subscribing fields to Planet imagery

• Log in to your FarmQA account from the web app if you haven't already.
• Click on the Settings icon, then click on the Organization tab.
• Make sure you've selected the root level of your enterprise in the left-hand side of the screen. If you have, scroll down the Details tab until you see the Planet integration section.
• Click on the bar under the Subscribed fields header to access the menu used for subscribing fields to Planet imagery (pictured below).

• At the top of the Select Fields menu you'll find some important information regarding your subscription (pictured below):
  1. The total number of acres you've purchased for a Planet subscription.
  2. The number of acres you have selected or have already subscribed for Planet imagery.
  3. The number of acres you have left that you can subscribe.

• Select fields to subscribe for Planet imagery either from the View list or View map page (pictured below).

• When you're done selecting fields, click the Update button.
  • NOTE: it may take a few minutes for Planet imagery to load into your fields. 

Please contact FarmQA Support with any further questions