Interpretação de imagens de satélite durante o ciclo de desenvolvimento do arroz irrigado em lavouras comerciais

Abstract

Remote sensing of information related to the agricultural production process has a high potential to contribute to the improvement of management of irrigated rice plantations in the West Frontier of Rio Grande do Sul. To analyze this hypothesis, six fields planted with the cultivar IRGA424RI during the 2016/17 harvest, recording the characteristics of the area, the management procedures and the main stages of development or rice throughout the cycle. Available images of the Landsat 8 satellite OLI sensor with lower atmospheric interference between September 2016 and April 2017 were processed to obtain vegetation index (NDVI) of the plots and descriptive statistics parameters of the pixels. The NDVI images (30 m resolution) were photointerpreted with the aid of the panchromatic band (15 m resolution), when necessary. The photointerpretation of the images along the cycle allowed inferring the main characteristics of the area, the plots used in the production, the uniformity of the crop, the irrigation channels, the advance of the sowing and the harvest. The NDVI values of the plots (pixels) within each area could be associated with the phenological stages, and this interpretation was tested in a late plot. It is concluded that remote sensing can contribute to irrigated rice crop management by providing information that can be clearly associated with field truth.