Yield maps provide a detailed account of crop production and potential revenue of a farm. This level of details enables a range of possibilities from improving input management, conducting on-farm experimentation, or generating profitability map, thus creating value for farmers. While this technology is widely available for field crops such as maize, soybean and grain, few yield sensing systems exist for horticultural crops such as berries, field vegetable or orchards. Nevertheless, a wide range of techniques and technologies have been investigated as potential means of sensing crop yield for horticultural crops. This paper reviews yield monitoring approaches that can be divided into proximal, either direct or indirect, and remote measurement principles. It reviews remote sensing as a way to estimate and forecast yield prior to harvest. For each approach, basic principles are explained as well as examples of application in horticultural crops and success rate. The different approaches provide whether a deterministic (direct measurement of weight for instance) or an empirical (capacitance measurements correlated to weight for instance) result, which may impact transferability. The discussion also covers the level of precision required for different tasks and the trend and future perspectives. This review demonstrated the need for more commercial solutions to map yield of horticultural crops. It also showed that several approaches have demonstrated high success rate and that combining technologies may be the best way to provide enough accuracy and robustness for future commercial systems.

Recent literature reflects the substantial progress in combining spatial, temporal and spectral capacities for remote sensing applications. As a result, new issues are arising, such as the need for methodologies that can process simultaneously the different dimensions of satellite information. This paper presents PLS regression extended to three-way data in order to integrate multiwavelengths as variables measured at several dates (time-series) and locations with Sentinel-2 at a regional scale. Considering that the multi-collinearity problem is present in remote sensing time-series to estimate one response variable and that the dataset is multidimensional, a multiway partial least squares (N-PLS) regression approach may be relevant to relate image information to ground variables of interest. N-PLS is an extension of the ordinary PLS regression algorithm where the bilinear model of predictors is replaced by a multilinear model. This paper presents a case study within the context of agriculture, conducted on a time-series of Sentinel-2 images covering regional scale scenes of southern France impacted by the heat wave episode that occurred on 28 June 2019. The model has been developed based on available heat wave impact data for 107 vineyard blocks in the Languedoc-Roussillon region and multispectral time-series predictor data for the period May to August 2019. The results validated the effectiveness of the proposed N-PLS method in estimating yield loss from spectral and temporal attributes. The performance of the model was evaluated by the R² obtained on the prediction set (0.661), and the root mean square of error (RMSE), which was 10.7%. Limitations of the approach when dealing with time-series of large-scale images which represent a source of challenges are discussed; however, the N–PLS regression seems to be a suitable choice for analysing complex multispectral imagery data with different spectral domains and with a clear temporal evolution, such as an extreme weather event.

Aims: This work aims to study the quality of low cost Digital Surface Models (DSMs) obtained with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) images and to test whether these DSMs meet common requirements of the wine industry. Methods and results: Experiments were carried out on a 4-ha vineyard located 10 km north of Beziers (France). The experimental site presents slope and aspect variations representative of mechanised commercial vineyards in Languedoc Roussillon. DSMs were provided by three UAV companies selected for the diversity of their solutions in terms of image capture altitude, type of UAV and image processing software. DSMs were obtained by photogrammetry and correspond to commercial products usually delivered by UAV companies. DSMs from UAV were compared to a reference Digital Elevation Model (DEM) acquired by a laser tachymeter. Four indicators were used to test the quality of DSMs: the mean error and its dispersion in the XY plane and in elevation Z. Results show a good georeferencing of the DSMs (MeanErrorXY<10 cm) and a similar quality in elevation (MeanErrorZ<10 cm) estimation. Results also show that the error in elevation is highly spatially structured. The spatial patterns observed did not depend on the elevation and could be related to algorithms used to compute the DSMs. Conclusion: Data acquisition and processing methods have an impact on the quality of the DSMs provided by the UAV companies. DSM qualities are good enough to meet commercial vineyard requirements. The tested DSMs fit the requirements to assess field characteristics (elevation, slope, aspects) which may be important for terroir characterisation purposes. Significance and impact of the study: This study proves that elevation data derived from UAV present an accuracy equivalent to the reference system used in this study. The rapidity, the low cost and the high spatial resolution of these data offer significant opportunities for the development of new services for the wine industry for field characterisation.

In vineyard management, the monitoring of vine water status is of great importance, because this variable influences harvest quality, yield and, in the longer term, vineyard sustainability. Numerous tools and methods have been proposed to monitor vine water status, but they often involve the use of costly and complex equipment and can be logistically demanding. Methods based on the observation of vine shoot growth are interesting potential alternatives, because they are simple to carry out and therefore potentially better adapted for use in production vineyards. However, these methods have never been evaluated or compared to reference measurements made on several cultivars and during several vintages. The objective of this article was to study their characteristics (validity range, specificity and sensitivity) in order to be able to give recommendations for their rigorous implementation in an experimental or operational context. The study was carried out using the iG-Apex method to measure vine shoot growth and predawn leaf water potential as reference measurements in 55 fields located in the Tavel vineyard (Occitanie, France) during the 2008 to 2012 vintages. The results showed that iG-Apex can be used as an operational tool for monitoring vine water status at field scale and for a predawn leaf water potential ranging from -0.2 MPa to -0.8 MPa. Nevertheless, precautions must be taken when interpreting the results, as the method is not specific to water constraint and is also sensitive to other phenomena. Furthermore, it could be relevant to use this method for the collective monitoring of vine shoot growth over large spatial areas, in addition to more precise and more localised monitoring carried out with reference measurements.