A day to meet the future end-users of the technology developed by DINOSAR, in Colombia

In January and May 2025, we wrote two news articles about end-users and the methodology developed by DINOSAR to address their specific needs:

• A day to meet the future end-users of the technology developed by DINOSAR
• News from the Focus groups in Colombia

Productive Meeting Between DINOSAR and Cenicaña: Advancing Innovation in Sugarcane Cultivation

Right after the ISSCT Congress, the DINOSAR project team held a highly valuable meeting with Cenicaña to share progress and insights on the latest innovations applied to sugarcane cultivation. The encounter served as an enriching space for discussion, knowledge exchange, and collaborative reflection on the future of sustainable agriculture and precision farming technologies. We extend our special thanks to Dr. Freddy Garcés, Dr. Julián Fernando Mateus-Rodríguez, and their outstanding research team for opening this valuable space of collaboration and scientific dialogue. Their contributions continue to drive innovation and strengthen the partnership between research institutions and applied field projects in the sugarcane sector.

One of the most valuable conclusions is the understanding that joining and complementing efforts consistently reduces the time and investment required to facilitate the use of technological tools. It also enables the design of technology transfer strategies that guide and promote the adoption of these resources across the sector.

A valuable meeting with Ingenio Providencia 

On the same day, we visited Ingenio Providencia, a Colombian Sugar mill. We had the opportunity to meet with an outstanding team from the field operations area, including the GIS and Precision Agriculture Coordinator, the Head of Agronomy, Zone Managers, Supervisors, and the Head of Water Resources: a team fully committed to innovation. They are driven by the goal of adopting reliable, field-validated tools tailored to the conditions of the Valle del Cauca, ensuring continuous, high-quality, and quantitatively robust information for decision-making.

During the meeting, we shared the progress of the DINOSAR project, in which they have also been participants since 2024, as well as in previous projects carried out in collaboration with the European Space Agency. The team has a strong conceptual understanding that quantitative information for biomass estimation is a key factor that can create substantial value within their sugarcane production operations.

Although vegetation indices derived from optical satellite imagery have been useful for detecting anomalies in the early stages, the expectation now is to take a significant step forward by integrating optical and radar data sources to ensure continuity and reliability of the information — something that is currently not feasible, even with higher temporal resolution sensors, due to the persistent cloud cover conditions characteristic of the region. Given that it is a company with a consistent track record in the use of precision agriculture tools, the arrival of new data layers and biomass information will enable more efficient monitoring from the very start of each crop cycle. This will allow timely actions and facilitate the verification of the impact of improvement plans and field management strategies across their plantations.