Abstract: 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.