In the first year of SABRES the main customer requirements have been identified. A high priority has been placed on the identification of crop growth variation, including vigour and NDVI, improving soil mapping and sampling regimes, differential application of fertilizers, disease and pest monitoring and treatment, and improved targeting of field walking.
To date SABRES has had to rely on substitutes for VHRSI, including aerial photography, airborne CASI and low resolution IRS imagery. The successful launch of IKONOS should enable 4m multispectral imagery to utilize in the 1999/2000 growing season at the farm sites in Belgium, France, Germany and the UK. The intention will be to download imagery as soon as possible after acquisition into Farm Management Information Systems (<<7days).