Conservation Agriculture Research Updates - April 2026

This paper from China looks at remote sensing to measure the important need for crop residue cover in CA that protects the soil from erosion and enhances soil health. Accurate and rapid mapping of crop residue covered crop land (CRCC) is important for monitoring tillage practices. To overcome problems with measuring residue this study proposes a crop residue covered spectral index (CRCSI) based on spectral and separability analysis of Sentinel-2A images. Three study cases in different seasons and regions were selected to develop and assess the performance of the CRCSI that showed the reliability and superiority of the index from three aspects: visual evaluation, separability analysis and CRCC mapping results.

This interesting paper used multi-spectral cameras to measure how long-term CA practices relate to vegetation index. They used a long-term rainfed 2-year rotation with durum wheat and maize including two unfertilized soil treatments were repeated in the same plots every year in Italy. The soil management affects the vegetation indexes’ accuracy, which is related to the nitrogen nutrition status. No-tillage management, which is characterized by a higher content of soil organic matter and nitrogen availability into the soil, allows obtaining a higher accuracy than the conventional tillage. So, the users of multispectral cameras for precision agriculture applications must take into account the soil management, organic matter, and nitrogen content.