# Monitoring Safron Crops with UAVs
## 3 Field Study Design Methodology
### Selection of Field Operations to Be Monitored  
The first step in the employed methodology was to identify the specific operations of the saffron production process which would be supported by the application of Smart Farming techniques. We conducted a survey with saffron cultivators and agronomists, who are experts on the specific type of cultivation, and we came up that the main elements which affect the production process and need to be further monitored. They are as follows:  
* The animal intrusions that destroy the crops.
* The weeds that affect the growth of the plant and need to be removed.
* The identification of saffron, which is the main plant and needs to be collected.
* Thus, the following research questions emerged for the pilot study performed:
* **RQ1: Is it possible to estimate the existence of _mammals_ in saffron crops with the help of UAV imagery?  
A serious threat for saffron crops is rodents. In particular, damage is caused by farm rats, mice, and moles. Rats and mice are dangerous because they eat the plants. Moles, although they are not herbivores, live in the fields and have nests a few meters below the ground. The damage caused to bulbous plants and other crops lies in the fact that they are destroyed by the opening of the burrows in the ground.  
* **RQ2: Is it possible to estimate the existence of _veeds_ in saffron crops with the help of UAV imagery?  
Weeds are unwanted plants that grow next to saffron flowers and threaten to choke them. The only way to deal with weeds is to manually locate and remove them. It would be very helpful and time saving if farmers could foresee the specific parts of the field where weeds could show up, so they would prevent their growth.  
* **RQ3: Is it possible to estimate the _production of saffron crops_ with the help of UAV imagery?  
Estimation of the production of certain parts of the field on early stages of the cultivation gives farmers the ability to intervene and treat those parts of the crop in order to maximize their production. In addition, having an assessment of the crops' production, farmers are more confident with their economic programming and investments.  
Figure 1: Steps of the methodology followed in the field study.  
In Figure 2, we take a closer look at the individual data to point out the different categories that exist in the cultivation. Figure 2a shows the saffron flower colored purple, Figure 2b shows the traces of the mouse in the form of hatching angles, and Figure 2c shows the weeds detected in this type of cultivation. These three images are zoomed sections of the large one. Using the open-source annotation tool CVAT ([[https://cvat.org/](https://cvat.org/)]([https://cvat.org/](https://cvat.org/)), accessed on 5 May 2022), the experts (saffron cultivators) labeled the object classes to produce Figure 2d, which shows the basic data of cultivation from a much closer perspective. In this image, the data are shown with different colors, e.g., red for the saffron flower, green for the weeds, blue for the mouse tracks, and black for pixels associated with the soil class (anything not belonging to the three classes).