Stanford researchers develop new way to measure crop yields from space

A Stanford-led team has used satellites to measure a special light emitted by plants to estimate crop yields with more accuracy than ever before. This advance will help scientists study how crops respond to climate change.

As Earth's population grows toward a projected 9 billion by 2050 and climate change puts growing pressure on the world's agriculture, researchers are turning to technology to help safeguard the global food supply.
A research team, led by Kaiyu Guan, a postdoctoral fellow in Earth system science at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy, & Environmental Sciences, has developed a method to estimate crop yields using satellites that can measure solar-induced fluorescence, a light emitted by growing plants. The team published its results in the journal Global Change Biology. http://www.rtoz.org/2015/11/11/stanford-researchers-develop-new-way-to-measure-crop-yields-from-space/