A crop residue spread monitoring system for an agricultural harvester, the agricultural harvester comprising a self-propelled agricultural harvesting vehicle with a threshing rotor supported in a grating, a chopper disposed to chop crop residue exiting the threshing rotor, and a spreading mechanism disposed to receive chopped material from the chopper and spread the chopped residue over the ground, wherein the crop residue spread monitoring system comprises at least one camera disposed below an exit of the spreading mechanism to image a plume of residue leaving the spreading mechanism from an underside of the plume of residue.
