Thesis (M.S., Biological & Agricultural Engineering) -- University of Idaho, 2016 | Precision agriculture (PA) recognizes that every area of a field does not respond equally to equal inputs. Growers in the Palouse region know this from the yields they obtain. Scientists know this from carefully designed experiments, and casual observers know this from the patchwork of green, yellow, and brown they see within the rolling wheat fields come July. Crop yields are driven by water in this dryland farming region, and the colors are senescence (or ageing) patterns caused mainly by water stress. Soils, topography, and climate all combine to form the unique micro-environments in which crops grow in Palouse fields, producing a high level of spatial complexity. In this thesis, intensive field monitoring and soil mapping are used to parameterize and evaluate a modified version of the SMR hydrologic model. A linkage is investigated between soil measurements, landscape hydrology, and crop patterns observed by the high-resolution RapidEyeTM multispectral imager.
