Monitoring an Onion Crop Using the MISBAR Platform

Abstract

This paper aims to monitor an onion crop using the MISBAR Platform, which is a geospatial platform developed within the framework of the OSS/NORTH AFRICA of GMES & AFRICA program. The MISBAR-Platform  is considered an effective tool in knowing the condition of the crop, its needs, and identifying the problems that the crop might be  exposed to from the beginning of its growth stages until  harvest  through using the vegetation indices which are calculated from  images taken by the Sentinal-2 satellite every five days for the same location, some of its bands reach spatial resolution of 10 meters, and through these indicators, the positive or negative dynamics of crop growth can be tracked. This is sufficient to obtain information about the condition of the field, such as estimating the general condition of plants or the soil surface. In this study, the MISBAR platform was used to monitor a winter onion crop on one of the farms in the Al-Jalida area, located in southwest the city of Tripoli. Based on the collected information from the field and after analyzing the values of the available vegetation indices on this platform, it was sufficient to use the following indicators to monitor this crop (MSAVI, NDVI, NDRE, NMDI). The study results showed that this platform is an effective tool for monitoring plant growth and health, assessing the impact of environmental factors, and supporting decision-making processes in agriculture.