NASA MODIS Image of the Day: February 27, 2007 – Burn Scars from Sugar Cane Harvest in Florida
On February 19, 2007, the MODIS on the Terra satellite captured this image of southern Florida. The main image is false color, and if you move your mouse over the image, you will see a true color image of the same scene. False color imagery is useful because it emphasizes different features of the landscape than the true color image does.
In this case, the false color image makes it very easy to see the burn scars just south of Lake Okeechobee. In the true color image, Lake Okeechobee is a brown circular shape, and the sugar cane fields are brown dotted patches below it. In the false color image, the lake appears black, and the burnt cane fields are red.
It is in this region of Florida that sugar cane is grown, and this is the time of year when it is harvested. Before sugar cane is harvested, the area is often burned. It doesn’t harm the sugar cane itself, but makes the difficult task of cutting the cane easier and safer by ridding the area of potentially harmful creatures like snakes, as well as the sharp-edged plant leaves.
