AgriTech Glossary.
The terms we use daily, defined practically.
A
Agricultural data fabric
An integrated data architecture that unifies farm data — yield history, prescriptions, imagery, sensors, equipment, weather, financials — under a single API and storage substrate, typically deployed in the customer's environment. The data fabric is the layer that enables AI, analytics, and integration to compound over time, and is the single most consequential architectural decision in any enterprise AgriTech program.
Agrivoltaics
The co-location of solar photovoltaic generation and agricultural production on the same land, where panel placement is designed to maintain or enhance crop and pasture productivity rather than displace it. Agrivoltaics is an emerging category that combines on-farm energy generation with crop or livestock operations.
B
Blue UAS
A Department of Defense framework certifying drone platforms as compliant with US security and supply-chain requirements. The Blue UAS list is the de-facto reference for federal and federal-adjacent drone procurement, and Blue UAS-listed platforms are the practical choice for compliant agricultural operations.
BVLOS
Beyond Visual Line of Sight. A class of drone operation where the pilot cannot maintain direct visual contact with the aircraft. BVLOS operations require specific FAA waivers and risk-mitigation infrastructure (typically detect-and-avoid systems) and are the gating regulatory category for long-range, large-area agricultural drone work.
C
CMMC
Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. A tiered cybersecurity framework required for Department of Defense contractors and increasingly used as a reference standard for federal-adjacent work. CMMC 2.0 became foundational for sensitive contracts in late 2025, and certification represents a structural barrier to entry for vendors competing on federal AgriTech work.
CNN (Convolutional Neural Network)
A class of deep-learning model specialized for spatial data, particularly imagery. CNNs are the workhorse architecture behind most computer-vision applications in agriculture — crop disease detection, weed identification, yield estimation from imagery, livestock behavior monitoring.
D
DaaS
Drone-as-a-Service. A delivery model where a service provider operates drones on behalf of customers, providing data products (imagery, prescriptions) or services (spray application, scouting) rather than selling hardware. DaaS amortizes equipment, certification, and compliance costs across a customer base and is often the right economic choice for operations below an own-the-fleet break-even.
E
Edge computing
Computing performed at or near the data source — on the sensor, on the equipment, or in a local gateway — rather than in a centralized cloud. In agriculture, edge computing is essential for low-latency control loops (irrigation, autonomy), bandwidth-constrained environments, and data-sovereignty postures.
EQIP
Environmental Quality Incentives Program. A USDA NRCS program providing cost-share and incentive payments to agricultural producers implementing conservation practices on working lands. EQIP is the largest single source of federal funding for on-farm conservation technology adoption.
Evapotranspiration (ET)
The combined loss of water from a field through soil evaporation and plant transpiration. ET is the water-balance term that irrigation scheduling has to match, and accurate ET estimation (often via Penman-Monteith with crop coefficients) is the foundation of efficient water management.
EVI
Enhanced Vegetation Index. A modified vegetation index that corrects for soil background and atmospheric scattering by weighting blue, red, and near-infrared bands. EVI is the standard index for satellite imagery and multi-temporal analysis, where atmospheric noise matters.
F
FAA Part 107
The FAA regulation governing routine small-UAS operations in the United States, including remote-pilot certification and standard operating limits. Part 107 covers most scouting and mapping operations and is the baseline certification for any commercial drone pilot.
FAA Part 137
The FAA regulation governing agricultural aircraft operations, including the application of crop-protection products. Part 137 certification is required for spray-drone operations and is significantly more demanding than Part 107, including operator training, equipment standards, and per-product approvals.
Fixed-wing
A drone configuration using rigid wings for lift, similar to a small aircraft. Fixed-wing drones deliver dramatically longer range and endurance than multi-rotors, making them the preferred choice for large-area mapping, but require runway or catapult launch and conventional landing.
H
Hyperspectral
Imaging that captures hundreds of narrow, contiguous bands across the spectrum rather than a handful of discrete bands. Hyperspectral imagery enables fine-grained discrimination of crop stress, disease, and species, but at significantly higher cost and data volume than multispectral.
L
Landsat
A long-running US satellite program providing free multispectral imagery at 30m resolution with a 16-day revisit. Landsat's primary value in agriculture is its 50+ year archive, which supports multi-decade time-series and climate-trend analysis.
LiDAR
Light Detection and Ranging. A sensor that uses pulsed laser light to measure distance and build dense 3D point clouds. In agriculture, LiDAR is used for terrain modeling, canopy structure measurement, biomass estimation, and orchard tree-by-tree analysis.
LoRaWAN
A low-power, long-range wireless protocol designed for IoT devices that need to transmit small amounts of data over distances of several kilometers on battery power lasting years. LoRaWAN is the dominant connectivity layer for in-field sensor networks in agriculture.
M
Multi-rotor
A drone configuration using multiple rotors for lift and control, typically four (quadcopter), six (hexacopter), or eight (octocopter). Multi-rotors offer precise hover and vertical takeoff but trade range and endurance for that flexibility, making them ideal for scouting and spray operations within a limited area.
Multispectral
Imaging that captures several discrete bands of the electromagnetic spectrum — typically blue, green, red, red-edge, and near-infrared. Multispectral imagery is the foundation of most modern vegetation-index workflows in drone and satellite remote sensing.
N
NB-IoT
Narrowband IoT. A cellular IoT standard offering low-power, low-bandwidth connectivity through existing mobile networks. NB-IoT is an alternative to LoRaWAN where cellular coverage is good and the operational model favors carrier-managed connectivity over private network deployment.
NDAA Section 848
A provision of the National Defense Authorization Act restricting federal agencies from procuring or operating drones manufactured in or containing critical components from covered foreign countries — in practice, China. The restriction propagates through federal-funding pass-through to state agencies, cooperatives, and any entity using federal dollars.
NDRE
Normalized Difference Red Edge index. Substitutes the red-edge band for red in the NDVI formula, giving a much more linear response to chlorophyll content across the full range of canopy density. NDRE is the preferred index for in-season nitrogen status and stress detection in dense canopies, but requires a sensor with a calibrated red-edge band.
NDVI
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. A ratio of near-infrared to red reflectance, used as a proxy for canopy vigor and biomass. NDVI is the most widely known vegetation index but saturates in dense canopy, making it unreliable for late-season analysis in row crops, vineyards, and dense vegetable canopies.
NIR spectroscopy
Near-Infrared spectroscopy. A technique that measures reflectance in the near-infrared band to estimate constituents such as protein, moisture, oil, and fiber in grains and forages. NIR is widely used in grain elevators, feed analysis, and increasingly in real-time harvest monitoring.
P
Penman-Monteith
The standard equation for calculating reference evapotranspiration from meteorological inputs (temperature, humidity, wind, radiation). Penman-Monteith is the basis for most modern irrigation-scheduling algorithms and is endorsed by FAO as the international reference method.
Planet Labs
A commercial satellite operator providing daily-cadence imagery at 3m resolution through a constellation of small satellites. Planet's offering fills the gap between free public satellites (lower cadence and resolution) and drones (higher resolution but small coverage), and is widely used for in-season monitoring of large operations.
PostGIS
A spatial extension for PostgreSQL that adds geographic objects and spatial query operators. PostGIS is the de-facto open-source standard for storing and querying farm geospatial data and is a foundational component of most sovereign data-fabric architectures.
PPK
Post-Processed Kinematic. A positioning technique similar to RTK, but with corrections applied after the flight rather than in real time. PPK trades real-time accuracy for higher reliability in poor-connectivity environments and is common in mapping-focused drone workflows.
Precision agriculture
The practice of applying the right input, at the right time, at the right place, at the right rate — with the 'right' in each clause determined by direct measurement at sub-field resolution. Precision agriculture is the foundational discipline that modern AgriTech tools (drones, sensors, AI, variable-rate equipment) exist to enable.
Prescription map
A georeferenced map that specifies an input application rate for each zone of a field. Prescription maps are generated from yield history, soil tests, imagery, and increasingly ML models, and are delivered to equipment in formats such as shapefile or ISOBUS for execution.
R
RTK GNSS
Real-Time Kinematic Global Navigation Satellite System. A positioning technique that combines a base station's known location with rover corrections to achieve centimeter-level accuracy. RTK is the standard for precision-ag equipment guidance, drone photogrammetry, and any application requiring sub-decimeter geolocation.
S
SAVI
Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index. A modification of NDVI that includes a soil-adjustment factor to reduce the influence of bare-soil reflectance in sparse-canopy scenes. SAVI is most useful in early-season scouting, arid and semi-arid systems, and range or pasture assessment.
Sentinel-2
A pair of European Space Agency satellites providing free, public multispectral imagery at 10–20m resolution with a 5-day revisit. Sentinel-2 is the workhorse baseline for satellite-based agricultural monitoring globally.
SGMA
California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. A landmark groundwater regulation requiring local agencies to bring groundwater basins into balance by specified deadlines. SGMA has driven significant adoption of precision irrigation and water-monitoring technology in California agriculture and serves as a template watched by other water-stressed states.
Smart farming
The broad application of digital technologies to farming operations — including precision agriculture but also livestock monitoring, greenhouse control, supply-chain traceability, and farm-business management. Smart farming is the umbrella category; precision agriculture is one component of it.
Soil EC
Soil Electrical Conductivity. A measurement of soil's ability to conduct electricity, used as a proxy for soil texture, salinity, moisture, and organic matter. Soil EC mapping (typically via sled-mounted sensors) is one of the most cost-effective ways to delineate management zones for variable-rate prescriptions.
T
Time-series database
A database optimized for storing and querying timestamped data at high write rates. Time-series databases (TimescaleDB, InfluxDB) are the standard storage layer for sensor telemetry, equipment data, and any high-frequency observational data in modern AgriTech stacks.
V
Variable-rate technology (VRT)
Equipment capable of varying the application rate of an input (seed, fertilizer, water, crop-protection product) across a field based on a prescription map. VRT is the executional layer that turns precision-ag analytics into in-field outcomes and is built into most modern row-crop equipment.
VTOL
Vertical Take-Off and Landing. A hybrid drone configuration that takes off and lands vertically like a multi-rotor but transitions to fixed-wing flight for cruise, combining the area coverage of fixed-wing with the deployment flexibility of multi-rotor. VTOL platforms are the emerging standard for large-area scouting in operations without runway access.
X
XAI (Explainable AI)
Techniques and frameworks for making machine-learning model outputs interpretable to humans. XAI matters in agriculture because agronomists and growers need to understand why a model is recommending an action before they will execute it, and because regulators increasingly require explainability for AI used in critical-infrastructure contexts.
Y
Yield monitor
A combine-mounted sensor system that measures grain flow and moisture at harvest, generating a yield map at sub-field resolution. Yield monitors are the canonical input to most precision-ag workflows and the longest-standing data layer in modern row-crop operations.