Nipissing University Satellite Imaging Project

For those of you who did not attend the meeting, here is a summary of what was discussed.

NIPISSING UNIVERSITY SATELITE IMAGING PROJECT


North- Eastern Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (NEOSCIA) in conjunction with Nipissing University, is working on a weather station research project, which began over the course of this past summer. There are currently two weather stations set-up: one in Verner and one in the Earlton area. The data collected from the weather stations, is uploaded onto a website every half an hour and the data is graphed; this information is available to everyone. Nipissing University is interested in expanding this project over the next three years, to include the addition of three more weather stations and the use of satellite imaging. Nipissing will also be setting up a user friendly, web based system, to display all the data collected, and it will also be a source for the agricultural community to use as a communication device, through the use of a blog based system.

Nipissing’s focus for this project will be collecting data, spatial data, maps of soil and so forth. NEOSCIA has expressed interest in collecting data concerning the moisture conditions of soil. Nipissing plans on collecting this data through the use of earth observation, via satellites in space. Currently, there are satellites in space for the use of agricultural purposes; companies that use these satellites are Rapid Eye, based out of Germany, and another company based out of France. There are free satellite services available via ‘Google Earth’, however, the data available is not applicable to agriculture.

Nipissing University has recently hired a new professor, whose interest is in hydrology, specializing in the process of monitoring moisture. John Kovacs has contacts with scientists who work for Agri-Food Canada; they have taken great interest in this project. In addition, other Universities have taken in notice in this project, and wish to partner-up with Nipissing University, for example, Western University, Graham Spheres from Laurentian University, and John Rowsell from the Guelph Research Station.

The satellite imaging project will be a 3 year project. Funding for the project will be coming from the Northern Heritage Fund and Fednor, but will require additional funding from private funding. The private funding must be a minimum of $15, 000 per year, for a total of $45,000 over the three years of the project. However, additional money coming from private funding will allow for Nipissing to expand beyond the current proposal.

The main focus of this project will be for training and for providing hands on education for undergrads; therefore most of the money will be used for paying the undergrads for their work (summer students), master students, and the project manager. The students, who will be hired for the project, do not necessarily have to come from Nipissing University. The field staff, who will be mainly summer students, will back-up satellites on the ground with the use of hand-held monitors. In addition, the funds for the project will be used for buying four more pieces of equipment.

Geographically, the project will definitely be taking place in Verner as well as Temiskaming. Nipissing is looking at the possibility of expanding to Quebec and Cochrane. In addition, Nipissing would like to place other sensors in a variety of different areas. For example, setting up two rainfall sensors, one in New Liskeard and one in Earlton, to observe and compare the possible linkage in precipitation.
Bayer is currently working on a similar project as Nipissing, but Nipissing will not be competing with Bayer, or be duplicating in Bayer in any manner. However, they are looking at the possibility of working with them in some way, perhaps through collecting historical data or satellite images.

There were two different satellites discussed by Dr. John Kovacs, earth observe satellites and radar satellites. Earth Observe satellites depend on the sun, the light from the sun reflects back up onto the satellite to create an image. For the satellite to work, it needs light, thus, one can’t create an image at night or if there is cloud cover. Radar satellites are similar to a radar gun; it emits pulses of radar that are similar to a microwave (not the same frequency). The Radar satellite can penetrate through clouds and work at night. The radar pulse bounces around on the service of the earth and comes back up to the satellite to create the image. The radar satellites use the electro-magnetic spectrum, especially infra red.

The radar satellites can determine growth stages of crops, as it responds well to plant growth, and thus we can determine plant rate growths potentially. The satellite images show carrying rates in different areas of the field, therefore, one can go in after, and determine the reasoning for the variance. The system can also determine the level of crop damage from wind, rain hail and so forth. In addition, the satellite image can detect soil moisture levels in varying parts of fields to determine if there is a need for irrigation or tile drainage.

An example, of the value and possibilities of using satellite imaging, is the African forest project which Dr. John Kovacs has worked on previously. This project, used satellite imaging, to determine the Nitrogen content of leaves, to see if more Nitrogen was required for the best tree performance.

Satellites can create different resolutions of images; however, it is paramount to decide what will work best, what type of satellite to use, and what is feasible. As well, certain resolutions are inefficient at recognizing disease. Another issue is that one may collect piles of data but have no way to process it; therefore, Nipissing can not guarantee that the data which they collect will be viable. Therefore, at the end of the three years, Nipissing’s goal is to collect as much geospatial data as possible, and create a seamless web based system.

The data collected and the website Nipissing wishes to create will be ideally free, however, there are issues with intellectual property. Fednor would like to be able to apply the data collected from project across other northern regions of Canada. The next step in this project, is finding additional funding within the community, as well as, finding out what data the community is interested in collecting. If the project becomes a success within the first three years, there is a potential for the project to expand an additional two to three years. However, for the project to be a success it is necessary to have a partnership with other business’ to make the project finically viable.

At this point in time, Temiskaming Crops Coalition will support the project to the tune of $3, 000 in each of the first three years of the project, for a total of $9,000, on behalf of Temiskaming cash-crop farmers (TSCIA, Temiskaming Grain Growers, and Temiskaming Wheat Growers). Second, Co-operative Regionale de Nipissing-Sudbury Ltd has committed to support the venture, at a level to be determined after other potential Agri-business partners indicate their level of support.

Finally, private discussion after the workshop indicates that private funding can come in the form of a "charitable donation", but the contributor would receive no further financial gain from the project other than a tax receipt for the year. Alternatively, funding could be designated in the form of a "research expense", and entered in your taxes as a claim against companies’ profits in a certain year. (NOTE: contributors should speak to their economic advisors about the best way for a specific business to participate.)

The long-term ownership of the research results is open to discussion. Contributing businesses should as a group develop an agreement with Nippissing as to how best to make use of eventual developed technology. (Example; free to all of the agricultural community or spin off as a private business such as University of Guelph/Ridgetown did with 'Weather Innovations"). Note that greater long term benefits to the agribusiness community might require additional up-front financial investment in the second phase of the research program, should the first phase prove successful.