The Hawk-Eye™ System was developed by Itri Corporation (Turf-Vu® is a division of ItriCorp). Our research facilitates continuos improvments to the system and the notice and alert algorithms.
During the 2014 growing season we developed and validated a new method for detecting crop stress remotely by the persistant measurement of the crop's leaf canopy temperature. We call this our Stress Index (SI).
In the 2015 season we continued to mature the SI and validatated that it tracks plant stress and stress relieving events.
In the 2016 and 2017 summer seasons we proved an Irrigation Index based from Hawk-Eye™ image data to facilitate the control of irrigation systems.
In 2018 we improved the index algorithms at our newly commissioned laboratory in Haymarket VA.
In 2019 and 2020 our summer trials introduced and verified Hawk-Eye™'s Quality Index and verified Hawk-Eye™'s Irrigation Index.
Our work is rooted in the concepts initiated by Jackson in 1981, that the plant can viewed as the integrator of the
soil-water- plant relationship and the canopy temperature is the indicator of water stress.
The goals of our research is to establish the protocols and algorithms that can be easily applied to turf grass, specialty crops, and row crops. We aim to development affordable and simple to operate remote sensing systems that allow plants to talk immediately actionable information.
