Terrestrial laser scanning provides highly accurate and dense 3D measurements of an object. This technology leads to several applications, for example in topographic surveys, forestry, and as-built documentation. Few developments exist in the area of agriculture and precision farming. In this contribution, multi-temporal 3D terrestrial laser scanning was applied for field crop modelling. The time-of-flight laser scanner Riegl LMS-Z420i was used three to five times per year to estimate plant height distribution of the field crops winter wheat, spring barley, and sugar beet. In 2008 and 2009, the area under investigation was a single field. As a further development, data from plots with different crop varieties of barley and sugar beet were analysed in 2010. As a result, within-field variability was detected by using crop surface models (CSM) and crop volume models (CVM). Single plants were successfully detected. The results will be compared with additional data in the future.

Proceedings on the Workshop of Remote Sensing Methods for Change Detection and Process Modelling, 18-19 November 2010, University of Cologne, Germany, K��lner Geographische Arbeiten, 92, pp. 25-30