Pasture Monitoring from Polarimetric TerraSAR-X Data

Good pasture management and optimal feed use are key drivers of profitability for New Zealand´s pastoral dairy and meat industries. Preliminary results are reported on a study to evaluate TerraSAR-X dual-polarisation radar imagery for estimation of pasture biomass. At the time of writing, 4 out of 36 images have been acquired and processed. Several linear models have been tested for field-measured pasture biomass in terms of co- and cross-polarisation backscatter. The best model is a linear regression using the HH and HV sum and difference, resulting in a residual standard error of 191.4 (kg/ha), with no evidence of a date effect.