Satellite Monitoring: A Game-Changer For Sugarcane Farming

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is a vital farming crop cultivated by growers in over a hundred countries. Its role in the global economy can not be overestimated, as it provides sugar, biofuel, and raw materials for various industries, including pharmaceuticals and chemicals. However, maintaining high yields is a constant challenge for growers due to drought, pests, and soil degradation. Classic crop assessment strategies often fail to deliver timely and accurate checks of these issues, leading to significant yield losses.

Satellite crop growth monitoring has become a decisive tool for diagnosing and battling poor sugarcane yields. With its usage, agriculturalists can detect early signs of stressors affecting their farms and intervene in time. This article explores how satellite technologies identify factors responsible for sugarcane losses and offers a real-world case study demonstrating its usefulness in improving yield and sustainability.

How Satellite Monitoring Impacts Modern Agriculture

Satellite technology is instrumental in modern precision agriculture, delivering up-to-the-minute insights into soil properties, crop vitality, and environmental factors. Farmers can swiftly detect challenges like water deficits, pest outbreaks, and nutrient shortages with sophisticated crop health tracking systems before they escalate. This data-centric strategy enables proactive solutions, reducing potential losses and boosting farming productivity.

A significant benefit of remote sensing in agriculture is its capability to identify plant stress before any physical signs become apparent. Satellite-driven tools accurately assess crop conditions by evaluating vegetation health indicators, temperature fluctuations, and soil moisture content. This empowers farmers to make well-informed adjustments to irrigation, fertilization, and pest control strategies, ultimately enhancing overall yield. Some key uses of satellite surveillance in farming include:

• Crop Surveillance: Satellites continuously monitor crop growth, highlighting areas requiring urgent attention due to issues like water deficiency, pest activity, or nutrient shortages. Early warnings empower farmers to act promptly, preventing severe damage.
• Efficient Water Control: Agriculture specialists optimize irrigation strategies with GIS technology and satellite data in arid regions. Soil moisture mapping ensures water is distributed only where needed, reducing waste and maximizing crop productivity.
• Soil Assessment and Mapping: Understanding soil composition is vital for determining fertility levels and suitable crops. Satellite-driven systems generate detailed maps that reveal variations in nutrient distribution, allowing targeted fertilizer application for better soil management.
• Optimized Crop Planning: Utilizing satellite data and advanced crop growth analysis, farmers can strategically schedule their harvests, predict yield outcomes, and pinpoint the most suitable harvesting periods. This proactive approach streamlines the supply chain, reduces post-harvest losses due to delays, and ensures superior product quality for market distribution.

Investigating Sugarcane Yield With EOSDA Crop Monitoring

Sugar production in Mexico remained steady for a decade, but the 2023/2024 harvest saw an unexpected decline. Determined to find the cause, Israel Antonio Gómez Juárez — an agricultural expert and speaker at Mexico’s ATAM ExpoMeeting — turned to EOSDA Crop Monitoring. He analysed crop health using remote crop growth monitoring systems and identified key factors behind the drop, helping farmers take preventive measures for future seasons.

Mexico ranks among the world’s top sugarcane producers, supplying industries from biofuels to sugar manufacturing, with the country’s mills processing around 5.5 million metric tons. However, changing climate conditions have begun challenging production, raising concerns about its long-term sustainability.

Sugarcane thrives in warm temperatures, abundant sunlight, and high rainfall, but unpredictable weather patterns disrupt these ideal conditions. Over the past decade, sugarcane production in Mexico has gradually declined, but the 2023/2024 season saw an alarming 20% drop. Yields fell to 4.7 million metric tons — well below the expected 6 million. Even more concerning was the reduction in sucrose concentration within the stalks, which directly impacted sugar extraction. Farmers needed answers, but the root causes were unclear.

To uncover the reasons behind the decline, Israel Antonio Gómez Juárez used EOSDA Crop Monitoring, analysing various vegetation and moisture indices. He leveraged NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), MSAVI (Modified Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index), NDWI (Normalized Difference Water Index), NDMI (Normalized Difference Moisture Index), and NDRE (Normalized Difference Red Edge Index) to track sugarcane’s ripening and harvesting stages.

Israel focused on the ripening periods from October to January across five seasons (2020–2024), comparing NDVI maps of Central El Potrero fields between 2022/23 and 2023/24. The red areas on the images revealed periods of low vegetation cover, co-occurring in both seasons.

NDVI map comparison of the same field of Central El Potrero in 2022/23 and 2023/24 harvesting seasons.

In addition to vegetation indices, he examined moisture levels and key climatic factors, including daily temperature fluctuations, rainfall, humidity, evapotranspiration, and solar radiation. All data was sourced from EOSDA Crop Monitoring, providing a comprehensive view of environmental impacts on sugarcane development.

Israel identified climate-related stressors affecting sucrose accumulation through this approach, equipping sugarcane growers with actionable insights to improve future yields.

Solutions For Improving Sugarcane Yield

Insights from satellite monitoring allowed farmers to take corrective actions to mitigate losses and enhance sugarcane yield. Farmers adjusted irrigation plans based on soil moisture levels by analysing real-time satellite data, ensuring that crops received adequate water at critical growth stages. This prevented drought stress and waterlogging, and it resulted in healthier plants and improved yields.

Crop health analysis also optimized fertilizer application. Satellite imagery helped identify nutrient-deficient areas, allowing farmers to apply fertilizers more precisely than uniformly across fields. This targeted approach improved crop nutrition and reduced excess fertilizer use, lowering costs and minimizing environmental impact.

Remote sensing significantly enhanced pest and disease control. Early detection of stress in sugarcane fields enabled targeted pesticide applications and crop rotation strategies. This proactive strategy and the crop growth monitoring systems minimized yield losses and enhanced overall crop resilience.

Whilst this article isn’t about allotments or gardening as such, I thought it interesting to share as it shows how modern agriculture is benefitting from modern technologies such as satellite monitoring.