METHOD OF DETERMINING AND TREATING THE HEALTH OF A CROP

A process for determining the health of crops in a field and for correcting deficiencies in the health of the crops is disclosed. The process includes georeferencing aerial photographs of at least a portion of the field, the aerial photographs having a particular spatial resolution; determining the green plane in the aerial photographs thus taken; preparing a relative greenness map of the field based upon the nitrogen reference area, the relative greenness map providing crop status information having spatial resolution equivalent to the spatial resolution of the aerial photographs; converting the relative greenness map to a nitrogen recommendation map having spatial resolution equivalent to the spatial resolution of the photographs; and applying nitrogen to the field according to the nitrogen recommendation map, whereby the nitrogen is applied to the field without loss of spatial information. A process for treating crops is also disclosed. The process includes establishing, in a field to be treated, at least one predetermined area of high nitrogen reference; photographing from the air, georeferenced portions of the field, using a particular spatial resolution; differentiating soil and crops, in the photographs thus obtained by segmenting images to select crop pixels; preparing a relative greenness map of the field from green plane based upon the high nitrogen reference area, the relative greenness map providing crop information having spatial resolution equivalent to the particular spatial resolution; and treating the crops in the field in accordance with the relative greenness map.