Case Study: SEGES Innovation

How SEGES Innovation Overcame Cloud Cover with ClearSKY Vision

Continuous Cloud-Free Monitoring

Today, SEGES Innovation provides Danish farmers with continuous access to ClearSKY’s AI-enhanced and fused satellite imagery. Using our Stratus-2 cloud removal model, farmers receive cloud-free imagery every other day, ensuring seamless crop monitoring in all weather.

This high-frequency imagery is integrated into SEGES’ CropManager platform, where it serves as the default view for precision agriculture tools and analytics. Farmers can still access original Sentinel-2 images, should that be necessary, but ClearSKY provides uninterrupted insights across all seasons and serves as a foundation for the service.

SEGES Innovation Case Study Image

The Challenge In The Past

Before adopting ClearSKY, SEGES Innovation struggled with frequent cloud cover in the autumn, making it difficult to obtain reliable, useful Sentinel-2 imagery. This challenge is not unique to SEGES Innovation. Like other Nordic countries, Denmark experiences prolonged periods of cloudy weather, making satellite monitoring difficult. This was, however, particularly problematic in the autumn of 2022 and 2023, when farmers needed nitrogen recommendations for rapeseed fields.

Persistent cloud cover prevented timely and accurate NDRE (Red-Edge Vegetation Index) analysis, making it challenging to optimize fertilization across thousands of crop fields. Without clear data, nitrogen applications were based on historical guesswork rather than precise up-to-date crop conditions.

The Cloudless Solution

In both the autumn of 2022 and 2023, SEGES Innovation reached out to ClearSKY for a solution to weeks and in some cases months without usable Sentinel-2 imagery. We processed terabytes of satellite data, particularly Sentinel-1 SAR, to detect changes beneath the persistent cloud cover. The result was historical NDRE maps that revealed precise crop health insights despite the cloudy and varying conditions. The data we delivered was compatible with SEGES Innovation's existing applications and workflow.

These NDRE maps enabled SEGES Innovation to calculate accurate nitrogen recommendations, ensuring farmers could apply the right amount of fertilizer without excess waste and cost. However, SEGES Innovation does not simply adopt new technology without rigorous validation. With their extensive agricultural expertise, they conducted thorough field trials across Denmark, comparing ClearSKY's cloud-free NDRE maps against historical methods and ground observations. The results confirmed the improved accuracy and reliability of the data, leading to full-scale integration into their CropManager platform.

“The test showed that a better description of a field’s variation is achieved by using images from ClearSKY than by using the old images — which would be the alternative.”

— Rita Hørfarter
SEGES Innovation

The Estimated Impact

By leveraging ClearSKY’s cloud-free imagery, SEGES Innovation ensured the service continuoued as usual. Our updated NDRE maps might even have provided significant improvements, as the data is more up-to-date, thus more reflective of the actual situation.

  • NDRE values revealed a 28% difference in crop health compared to raw Sentinel-2.
  • Farmers optimized nitrogen use, leading to a 24 kg per hectare reduction.
  • Across 125,000 hectares, this resulted in over 3,600 tons of nitrogen savings.

As a result, ClearSKY imagery is now fully integrated into SEGES’s CropManager platform, providing Danish farmers with uninterrupted, data-driven insights regardless of cloud cover.

Experience ClearSKY in action. Explore near real-time data in CropManager.

Or read the full SEGES Innovation autumn case study on Medium.