Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technical applications, standard workflow, and future developments in maize production – water stress detection, weed mapping, nutritional status monitoring and yield prediction

Abstract

As a consequence of rapid ongoing technological developments and increasing integration into agricultural mechanization and agricultural intelligence, UAVs are gradually starting to play an increasingly important role in field crop management and monitoring. This review introduces and covers the development in four major applications of UAVs in maize production: (i) water stress detection, (ii) weed mapping, (iii) nutrient status monitoring and (iv) yield prediction. In addition, this review summarizes UAV data management methods, explains how expert systems work in UAV systems, and provides standardized workflow data for farmers in maize production. In addition, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of UAV use in maize production are analyzed. Based on more than eighty publications and our own research, the discussion and conclusions point out key issues in UAV usage in maize cropping and research gaps that need to be filled, along with a number of recommendations for the development of UAVs in maize production in the future.