2007 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 93-101
Most farmers think that improving the production of crops and increase in income. Therefore, factors such as optimization of fertilizers, soil moisture, and irrigation techniques, prevention of damage by harmful insects, weather conditions, and management costs have become issues of concern. The distribution of plants, and plant life itself, is dependent on various environmental conditions. A change in environment is often described as “environmental stress.” Damage by harmful insects, under nutrition, and environmental pollution often cause results of environmental stress. If changes in the physiological functions of farm products caused by environmental changes can be measured without any physical contact, then monitoring of the environment, forecast of yield, growth diagnosis, and management of crops will become possible. Remote sensing is a nondestructive technique to observe or measure objects and phenomena remotely, that is without any physical contact, using observation equipment. Remote sensing enables an object to be measured on spatial, temporal, and spectral scales. In particular, satellite remote sensing enables the observation of the entire earth by a consistent measuring method. Remote sensing was expected to have the potential to change the ways of agriculture; however, such utility did not advance as expected. There is a new discovery discovered because of the long temporal observation, for example change of CO2. There are the possibilities of “new discoveries” in agriculture as well as system science because remote sensing enables observation on various scales: spatial, temporal, and spectral.
