3 ms·

The problem I have experienced first-hand is basically that >individual farms might want to look at relative growth rates of corn in their fields, or soil mois

The problem I have experienced first-hand is basically that >individual farms might want to look at relative growth rates of corn in their fields, or soil moisture levels, etc. a LOT of people want this, but they would never pay $x,xxx/month for that, ever.

n8cpdx 5y ago
The imagery is often already captured, so if I want to give Maxar $250 I don’t see why they wouldn’t take it. Eos (iirc it’s been a while) actually let me buy some imagery, but they would only give me pictures, not actual georeferenced rasters. The actual manipulation and use of the data, even for machine learning, is pretty straightforward these days with ArcGIS. So yes, I want pixels.
- astrange 5y ago
  Usually corporate culture reasons prevent a business like that from just taking your money. They don't want to undercut their giant custom contracts and don't know how to handle customer support for cheaper people. And I can imagine the cheaper customers are a lot less educated and don't have the right expectations, like how often their target area is covered in clouds.
bluGill 5y ago
Drones exist, and cost a lot less then thousands to buy. Plus a drone can be used when you want to, the satellite goes overhead every few weeks and if it is a cloudy day too bad. For farms the information from images is only valuable on a few specifc days, too early and you don't learn anything, a few days later and it is too late to do anything about it. I work for John Deere. I can't speak for the company. I'll confirm we are intersted in imagining, but I won't comment on our plans to deal with the above issues.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  Some providers could give you daily updates but yes, drones are much cheaper and much more flexible. You need a custom sensor? Drones can do it, on satellites don't even think about it unless your budget is >$100M.
PeterisP 5y ago
There are like 2 million farms in USA, and if that information is worth to them something like $10/month then that's a potential market worth quarter of a billion per year..
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  That's a poor assumption to base a business off of.
  - tibyat 5y ago
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    I kind of agree with you (what I think you mean with it) but variations of that statement appear in 95% of startup pitches.
- ogennadi 5y ago
  Tractor companies (e.g. John Deere, CASE) provide this information in their cloud offerings

n8cpdx 5y ago

The imagery is often already captured, so if I want to give Maxar $250 I don’t see why they wouldn’t take it. Eos (iirc it’s been a while) actually let me buy some imagery, but they would only give me pictures, not actual georeferenced rasters. The actual manipulation and use of the data, even for machine learning, is pretty straightforward these days with ArcGIS. So yes, I want pixels.

astrange 5y ago
Usually corporate culture reasons prevent a business like that from just taking your money. They don't want to undercut their giant custom contracts and don't know how to handle customer support for cheaper people. And I can imagine the cheaper customers are a lot less educated and don't have the right expectations, like how often their target area is covered in clouds.

bluGill 5y ago

Drones exist, and cost a lot less then thousands to buy. Plus a drone can be used when you want to, the satellite goes overhead every few weeks and if it is a cloudy day too bad. For farms the information from images is only valuable on a few specifc days, too early and you don't learn anything, a few days later and it is too late to do anything about it. I work for John Deere. I can't speak for the company. I'll confirm we are intersted in imagining, but I won't comment on our plans to deal with the above issues.

moralestapia 5y ago
Some providers could give you daily updates but yes, drones are much cheaper and much more flexible. You need a custom sensor? Drones can do it, on satellites don't even think about it unless your budget is >$100M.

PeterisP 5y ago

There are like 2 million farms in USA, and if that information is worth to them something like $10/month then that's a potential market worth quarter of a billion per year..

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
That's a poor assumption to base a business off of.
- tibyat 5y ago
- moralestapia 5y ago
  I kind of agree with you (what I think you mean with it) but variations of that statement appear in 95% of startup pitches.
ogennadi 5y ago
Tractor companies (e.g. John Deere, CASE) provide this information in their cloud offerings