Prof. Hazem M. Kalaji’s team from the Department of Plant Physiology of the Institute of Biology at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) is conducting research to develop a modern and non-invasive method of assessing yield losses following hailfall. Tests include an unconventional method of firing artificial hail from the air at oilseed rape plantations using a pneumatic machine gun.

Up to now, hail simulation has been obtained using a laboratory hail simulator, i.e. a punch, destroying the test material (plants) mechanically. Mathematical models have also been used.

The research taking place at SGGW concerns the development of a method for assessing yield losses based on classical measurements by professional damage controllers, ground-based chlorophyll fluorescence signals (photosynthetic plant productivity), multispectral imaging (drones) and remote sensing (using Sentiel-2 satellite data).

The research is being carried out as part of the collaboration between Prof. Hazem Kalaji and Dr Piotr Dąbrowski, Prof. SGGW, and companies that insure crops and harvests against weather-related losses.