Hydraulic Stress of a Plantain Crop

The study took place over a 14 day period. During this time themographic images from the crop where taken to determine if it was suffering from hydraulic stress or not. The location of the study was Ecuador and I took this location because the economy of this country relies heavily on agriculture. Many problems were observed and during the 14 day period hydraulic stress was the cause of damage to many of the plantain plants. The health of some of them was seriously deteriorated and this resulted in an economic loss for the owner of the plantation.

Using a Flir Thermographic camera I captured key points of the plantation which I divided into 4 sections. If the temperature of a given plant had a +5 or -5 degree celcius difference with atmospheric temperature then I would take a closer look as this meant the plant was suffering from hydraulic stress. One of the mayor problems in Ecuador in general is that during rainy season owners of plantations do not apply an irrigation schedule because it used to rain a lot but climate change has taken its toll with many dry days during this raining season.At the end I created an irrigation schedule to improve the performance of the crop and avoid hydraulic stress on the plants.

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Results & Reports

Hydraulic Stress Graph

This graph summarises the whole study. Whenever a temperature crossed the red line hydraulic stress was present.

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Instrument Error Graph

A small error was detected due to the time of the day the pictures were taken. This is the correction that was applied.

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Geolocation

Satellite Image of te site with the coordinates. The red and white squares represent each of the four cuadrants

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Report of The Most Affected Plant Jan 10

A report from the first day of the study. Hydraulic stress was already present in this day with high temperatures, crop health was on a decline

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Report of the Most affected Cuadrant Jan 16

An image of one of the plants affected by hydraulic stress. Image taken Towards the middle of the cylce and of the study.

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Report of the final day of study

A Report of the most adected cuadrant on the last day of the study. Hydraulic stress was present in this day and the health of many of the plants was terrible

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