GeoVantage Provided High-Rez Digital Aerial Photography of Ocean Spray Cranberry Bogs

Ocean Spray’s cranberry harvesting season drew to a close last month, made easier this year with the use of GeoVantage’s high-resolution aerial imagery. GeoVantage imaged cranberry bogs in two of Ocean Spray’s major growing areas in Massachusetts and Quebec.

Ocean Spray has been implementing aerial photography since 1986. They made the switch to digital imagery from conventional film-based photos in 2002, when they selected GeoVantage as their primary digital aerial imagery provider.

 
“We chose GeoVantage because of the quality of their imagery product, and the competitive price that came along with it,” explains Lyn DiBiase, Principal GIS Analyst at Ocean Spray, “Our growing areas are located across the U.S. and Canada, from New Jersey to British Columbia – GeoVantage’s technology uniquely positions them to comprehensively deliver imagery of any location. This makes my job that much easier because I can work with a single provider for all my imagery and receive consistent, high quality work.”

GeoVantage collects full color and near infrared digital imagery simultaneously by implementing a fully digital workflow and a multispectral camera system that is integrated with a global positioning system (GPS) and inertial measurement unit (IMU). The process enables imagery to be precisely georegistered and orthorectified. GeoVantage’s systems are compact and portable, which means they can be deployed rapidly anywhere in the world and mounted on local aircraft for image capture.

DiBiase uses the resulting imagery in several ways. Imagery is used to help on the business end – to map the land Ocean Spray has under contract with growers who own the cooperative. By determining the number of acres in production, Ocean Spray can estimate the number of barrels growers will deliver in a harvest and make business projections.

DiBiase also provides the imagery to individual growers to help in their land management. The imagery can reveal drainage problems, weed and insect infestation and when it may be time to renovate certain areas. “Helping growers to better interpret and utilize imagery data is one of my priorities. More and more, we can apply new technologies to help improve and fine-tune our production. The switch to digital imagery from film-based alone has made my work more time-effective and accurate, reducing the chance for operator error.”

FMI: www.geovantage.com