The Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food Sovereignty of the Government of the Canary Islands, together with the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), is developing a precision agriculture project for the control of water stress and disease prevention in vine and olive crops.
The project includes the use of drones and data analysis through artificial intelligence with the aim of improving the performance of agricultural holdings. This initiative is financed with 249,310 euros from the regional Executive.
Within the framework of this agreement, in the last three months, 42 flights have been carried out with drones equipped with thermal and multispectral cameras (with the capacity to detect infrared wavelengths) over agricultural plots in the Archipelago to later combine them with high-resolution satellite images captured between 2020 and 2025.
Regarding this initiative, the area's councillor, Narvay Quintero, highlighted in a parliamentary commission that "promoting innovation is an essential part of the Canary Islands Government's strategy for the primary sector because it is key to guaranteeing its future, increases the competitiveness of our productions and, at the same time, is configured as an important attraction for young people, who guarantee generational change."
From these meteorological, agronomic, physiological, and soil records, subsequently analyzed using artificial intelligence tools for image processing, more than 25 indices have been generated that allow for improved early detection of pests and diseases in vineyards and olive groves, optimize water use, and reduce the application of plant protection products.
These works also enable the development of plant health maps and the establishment of the foundations for an early warning system that will result in a reduction of production costs and the profitability of the sector through the fight against pests and diseases in strategic crops such as vineyards.