Alfalfa is a valuable and intensively produced forage crop in the United States, and the timely estimation of its yield can inform precision management decisions. However, traditional yield assessment approaches are laborious and time-consuming, and thus hinder the acquisition of timely information at the field scale. Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have gained significant attention in precision agriculture due to their efficiency in data acquisition. In addition, compared with other imaging modalities, hyperspectral data can offer higher spectral fidelity for constructing narrow-band vegetation indices which are of great importance in yield modeling. In this study, we performed an in-season alfalfa yield prediction using UAV-based hyperspectral images. Specifically, we firstly extracted a large number of hyperspectral indices from the original data and performed a feature selection to reduce the data dimensionality. Then, an ensemble machine learning model was developed by combining three widely used base learners including random forest (RF), support vector regression (SVR) and K-nearest neighbors (KNN). The model performance was evaluated on experimental fields in Wisconsin. Our results showed that the ensemble model outperformed all the base learners and a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.874 was achieved when using the selected features. In addition, we also evaluated the model adaptability on different machinery compaction treatments, and the results further demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed ensemble model.
Over the last 25 years, whole-plant corn silage has become an important and popular feedstuff for dairy production. Copious research has been dedicated to the development and evaluation of alternatives to enhance the nutritive value of whole-plant corn silage. These efforts have been aimed at manipulating the physical and chemical characteristics of whole-plant corn silage in an effort to maximize dairy profitability. Results from this review indicate that optimization of harvest maturity, kernel processing, theoretical length of cut, and cutting height improve or maintain the nutritive value and milk production of lactating dairy cows. Technological advancements have been developed and made available to dairy producers and corn growers desiring to enhance fiber and starch digestibility of whole-plant corn silage. Future research should be directed toward further assessment of new processors available in the market and the development of assessment methods for optimization of crop processor settings, harvest efficiency, and nutritional modeling.
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