MEASURING THE RESPONSE OF PASTURE TO SUPERPHOSPHATE USING AIRCRAFT AND SATELLITE REMOTE-SENSING

Remote sensing measurements in the visible, near infrared, and short-wave infrared were made on experimental areas of grass-legume pasture with different fertiliser and stocking rate treatments and on commercial pastures with added fertiliser. Divisive classification and ordination analyses of the remotely sensed data were used to allocate the image data to 11-15 classes from measurements in 2 successive years The resultant data were displayed on an image processing system which showed that the fertilised areas belonged to classes different from those without fertiliser. Soil and plant nutrient tests revealed differences between treated and untreated sites as mapped from the remote sensing data.