What the Wettest Year Ever Means for Chile Cherry Farmers

In a time when extreme weather has burdened farmers around the world, Ceres customers have seen it all. From extreme flooding to extreme drought and heat, growers continually face identifying and managing their battered fields and crops. Especially this season in Chile.

Ceres technology can help growers assess the three main issues that wet years bring:
• Flooding crops
• Lost plants
• Weak plants

Flooded Crops:
Ceres imagery helps farmers assess areas that are still wet, need drainage. Ceres Plant Level Insights can help farmers identify which zones were flooded. Unlike other providers that analyze data only at the field level, Ceres Imaging delivers insights on crop health down to the individual tree or vine. This enhanced precision unlocks the ability to quantify changes—so you can measure progress, uncover trends, and evaluate the impact of your management strategy. 

Common uses include:
• Quantifying the impact of management decisions
• Prioritizing limited resources
• Comparing performance between varietals, over time, and against benchmarks

While other imagery simply separates crops from background elements like soil and shadow, Ceres identifies and analyzes the canopy of each individual tree.

Lost Plants
Ceres Tree Counting can help farmers identify which plants/trees were lost due to flooding. Tree counts generated from aerial imagery make it possible to avoid the time and expense of traditional clicker-counting—without sacrificing accuracy. Receive an inventory pinpointing tree replacement needs by variety within 72 hours.

Ceres Imaging pinpoints missing trees by varietal, streamlining the tree replacement process. It’s faster, cheaper, and more accurate than manual counting. In addition to a map of missing and unhealthy trees, growers have the option to view specifics such as rootstock type and planting year at the individual tree level.

Weak Plants
As flooded soil causes roots to not get enough oxygen, the results often create weak plants. Just as Ceres technology can identify lost plants, Plant Level Insights can help farmers identify plants that are more weak by offering the ability to “filter” for a specific management focus—for example, to view only highly stressed trees, or to view trees by varietal. Plant-level data also makes it possible to track and measure changes over time. With quantified feedback on what’s working in your irrigation strategy, it’s easier to prioritize resources and respond quickly to changing conditions in the field.

The Ceres tool suite also offers customized views. Crop health data at the individual plant level unlocks the ability to customize your view to the task at hand. Pinpoint missing trees, assess crop stress by irrigation zone, or compare performance between varietals.


Ceres experts are available to demonstrate how their technology can help manage the wet years, from Image Capture, to Processing and Analysis, to Quality Control, ensuring accuracy can equate to big ROI in a time when your plants are stressed to the limit.