The acorn is the fruit of the oak and is an important crop in the Spanish dehesa extreme\~na, especially for the value it provides in the Iberian pig food to obtain the "acorn" certification. For this reason, we want to maximise the production of Iberian pigs with the appropriate weight. Hence the need to know the area covered by the crowns of the acorn trees, to determine the covered wooded area (CWA, from the Spanish Superficie Arbolada Cubierta SAC) and thereby estimate the number of Iberian pigs that can be released per hectare, as indicated by the royal decree 4/2014. In this work, we propose the automatic estimation of the CWA, through aerial digital images (orthophotos) of the pastureland of Extremadura, and with this, to offer the possibility of determining the number of Iberian pigs to be released in a specific plot of land. Among the main issues for automatic detection are, first, the correct identification of acorn trees, secondly, correctly discriminating the shades of the acorn trees and, finally, detect the arbuscles (young acorn trees not yet productive, or shrubs that are not oaks). These difficulties represent a real challenge, both for the automatic segmentation process and for manual segmentation. In this work, the proposed method for automatic segmentation is based on the clustering algorithm proposed by Gustafson-Kessel (GK) but the modified version of Babuska (GK-B) and on the use of real orthophotos. The obtained results are promising both in their comparison with the real images and when compared with the images segmented by hand. The whole set of orthophotos used in this work correspond to an approximate area of 142 hectares, and the results are of great interest to producers of certified "acorn" pork.

Satellite imagery of the Sahara desert presents an arid expanse, the endless rolling dunes we know from movies. The thing is, normal satellite images don't show individual trees, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're not there. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and NASA taught artificial intelligence about trees and had them take another look. It turns out there is lots of vegetation in the Western Sahara: an estimated 1.8 billion trees and shrubs. "We were very surprised to see that quite a few trees actually grow in the Sahara Desert, because up until now, most people thought that virtually none existed," says lead author Martin Brandt of the university's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.