Monitoring of conditions of agricultural crops in the Perm krai on information of the remote sensing of Earth

Agricultural production management, especially in the areas unsuitable for arable farming, must be carried out according to the following principles - constant control of land treatment measures based on agricultural and grochemical engineering, phase crop development, control of crop yield and total yield. Remote (satellite) sensing can help to obtain objective regional level data on crops conditions over vast territories. The use of the data significantly reduces expenses on cultivated land monitoring over vast areas. Considering spatial nature of the abovementioned tasks geoinformation systems (GIS) are the most suitable tool for conducting research in this sphere. In GIS Centre of Perm State University method of complex evaluation of crop biomass, which is aimed at prompt analysis of seeds and their growing conditions, has been developed. This method is based on geoinformation system ArcGIS 9.* (ESRI, USA). The underlying principle of the method is that data obtained from Earth remote sensing, subsatellite monitoring and biological productivity model is used for crops conditions monitoring in diagnostic areas. In order to carry out complex evaluation, geographical database of diagnostic areas has been created. Then on the basis of remote sensing data information about overall conditions, growing conditions and predicted crop productivity has been obtained. What is more, the results have been supported by the middle- and high-resolution space photographs taken from the satellites Terra, Landsat, IRS. To see the connection between the space photographs and actual plants conditions verificatory measurements of crop biomass on the diagnostic areas have been conducted.