In order to achieve a more effective and sustainable weed management, current production systems should be profoundly modified by incorporating new technological and agronomic tools to minimize herbicide use and tillage operations. In this way, this project aims to:

1) develop new technological tools for aerial and terrestrial monitoring of crops and weeds for site-specific application of pesticides;

2) develop and evaluate agronomic solutions, which were adapted to the specific conditions of different regions in Spain, by applying ecological knowledge and available technology tools; and

3) implement computer tools to facilitate knowledge integration and transfer to end-users.

The research team of the Subproject 3 (IAS/UCO/IFAPA)* will be in charge of the issues related to aerial-based monitoring. On the one hand, early and late detection of weeds in winter cereal, maize and vineyard will be dealed with the design of geometric and textural segmentations as well as geostatistical procedures. This task will also incorporate agronomic variables such as infestation levels and economic thresholds. On the other hand, a combination of photogrammetric point clouds, spectral information (RGB + NIR) and geometric parameters is also proposed to monitor vineyards and almond orchards by using innovative object-based image analysis (OBIA) algorithms.

The issues related to terrestrial monitoring and site-specific actuation systems will be addressed by the research team of the Subproject 4 (CAR)**, which will focus to three primary goals:

1) 2D and 3D reconstruction of crop and weed plants in maize and vineyard fields;

2) development of an actuation system to be integrated into an intelligent sprayer; and

3) development of an autonomous platform for crop monitoring and site-specific weed