The invention comprises a method and apparatus for managing cropland comprising the steps of: (1) wirelessly linking a remote sensing platform to a ground based communication system； (2) spatially resolving into a set of locations a ground matrix area using optics of the remote sensing platform； (3) optically measuring for each member of the set of locations: first reflected cropland radiation in a visible range using the remote sensing platform, second reflected cropland radiation in a near-infrared range, and emitted radiation in an infrared range of 2500 to 12,000 nm； (4) generating a crop health data set for each set of locations using the combined remote sensing data； (5) repeating the steps of spatially resolving and optically measuring to periodically update the crop health data set； and (6) communicating the specific crop management recommendations to a farm treatment system.
