Mapping Cotton’s Future from the Sky
HDR Spotlight: Francesca Devoto
Francesca in the field during her first year (Gatton, Queensland, May 2024).
In a world where climate variability, agricultural technologies and population growth are reshaping agriculture, UQ PhD candidate Francesca Devoto is using remote sensing technologies to improve the efficiency of cotton farming. Based at The University of Queensland and working in collaboration with Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd (CSD) and SmartSat CRC, Francesca is exploring how environmental stresses and management practices affect cotton growth and productivity—right from the leaf to the field level.
Francesca’s research focuses on understanding how biotic and abiotic stresses, along with practices like irrigation, fertilisation, and growth regulation, influence cotton development. By integrating data from drones, satellites, and hyperspectral sensors, the study aims to detect early signs of crop stress and optimise management strategies.
“My background in agricultural science led me to discover the potential of remote sensing as an innovative, timely, scalable, and real-time approach to analysing crop growth patterns,” Francesca explains. “This is especially important in the context of climate change and the need to reduce input waste while maximising productivity.”
The methodology is as ambitious as it is advanced. Using drone imagery and high-spatial resolution multispectral PlanetScope satellite data, Francesca performs time-series analyses of vegetation indices. These are combined with thermal data and hyperspectral-derived Solar-Induced Fluorescence (SIF) to capture both immediate and delayed stress responses in cotton crops.
This multi-layered approach allows for a comprehensive understanding of how genetic, environmental, and management (GxExM) factors interact throughout the crop’s lifecycle.
The goal? To enable detection and monitoring of stress over entire fields, enabling timely interventions that can significantly boost yields.
Despite the challenges of fieldwork—ranging from unpredictable weather to logistical hurdles—Francesca’s research has already yielded promising results. One key finding is the ability to predict final crop height and biomass as early as 37–38 days after sowing, well before the flowering stage.
“This early insight is a game-changer,” Francesca notes. “It allows for timely adjustments in management practices, which can make a big difference during the critical flowering period.”
Collecting spectral reflectance with ASD Fieldspec (Gatton, Queensland, February 2024)
The implications extend beyond academia. Her research is directly informing CSD’s field management strategies and is expected to benefit the broader cotton industry by offering data-driven solutions to real-world problems.
The project is a collaborative effort, involving not only CSD and SmartSat CRC but also a researcher from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. These partnerships are helping to bridge the gap between research and application, ensuring that the findings are both scientifically robust and practically relevant.
The journey has also been one of personal growth. “At the start of my PhD, the crop and methodologies I’m working with were entirely new to me,” Francesca shares. “Managing remote sensing datasets and machine learning models was a steep learning curve, but it’s been incredibly rewarding.”
With the first objective nearing completion, Francesca is preparing to dive into the next phases of the study, including further data collection during the upcoming summer. The work promises to continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in precision agriculture.
For students considering a similar path, Francesca offers this advice: “Persist when facing challenges. A PhD is fundamentally a learning process, and while it may sometimes be difficult to recognise personal progress, persistence is crucial for achieving personal growth and success.”
When not in the field or analysing data, Francesca enjoys reading, watching movies, and hiking with friends—reminders that even the most high-tech science is grounded in human curiosity and connection.
