Felise Bloodgood

​How did you become interested in this feld of study?
I learned about this option in my fnal year of undergraduate study, and it intrigued me so I decided to go back for my master’s degree in that feld. I have not regretted it. I am learning new things everyday about how surveys are conducted, roads are created, pipelines are constructed, etc. The job security was also a factor in choosing this major. 

What is the title of the ARI project you are working on?
“Water-Smart Planning: A Satellite Imagery-based Remote Sensing Approach to Evaluate Crop Water Status in California Orchards for Future Sustainability” 

Briefly describe your project and why it is important to California agriculture or natural resources.
Due to California’s persistent drought condition, improving water use effciency in agricultural is extremely important. Use of imageries captured by drones is relatively new in agriculture. Drone-based imagery captures still have some limitations due to cost and, sometimes, accuracy. However, the advantage of drone-based imagery is that it can offer almost real-time feld monitoring to assess crop health status and crop stress level due to a lack of water and nutrient defciencies. However, long-term regional scale monitoring is also important for management and planning. In the public domain, there are multiple decades of satellite imageries available from different federal agencies that can be utilized to identify long-term trends of crop water status in California orchards. In this ARI project, we are using satellite imagery and data sets to analyze statewide orchard crop water status. The analysis will allow us to correlate the water status with crop production, which will be helpful to growers and water managers to improve water use effciency. 

Why are you interested in this project?
I am interested in this project because I want to further explore remote sensing data and imagery. I am particularly interested in how these technologies can help us develop a comprehensive, accurate and cost-effective method to monitor crop water stress levels. I am interested in drone-based surveying as well, which can also be used to improve agricultural water management. 

Describe your role as you’ve conducted research in this ARI project.
My role in this project is to help collect, process and analyze multiyear satellite imagery-based data. I am also helping to analyze drone-based aerial images. I am a certifed drone pilot and am planning to help collect unmaned aerial vehicle-based images for this project during the summer and fall. 

What do you hope to learn, or have you learned, through your involvement with this ARI project?
I learned about all kinds of remote sensing-based satellite imagery data sets, how to collect and process them and how to generate different vegetation indices. I hope to learn more about drone-based imagery capture and image interpretation from this project. 

What are you doing now that you’ve graduated and how did working on this ARI project help you?
I am currently working as a survey technician at an engineering company in Fresno. I plan to continue working with the company after graduation. This project helped me in getting my remote pilot’s license and this will likely help me in my current engineering job. 

Is there anything else you would like to share with us regarding your background and interests?
I am an offcer of the Society of Women Engineers. 

What did you fnd most rewarding about the ARI program?
Working on this project allowed me to prepare for and take the remote pilot’s license examination, which allowed me to work as the drone pilot for the project. I used some of the data generated from this project as my research data for my master’s thesis. During this project, I met and learned from an experienced drone pilot and learned how to work with high-quality drones and high-resolution imagery.