Farmland time machine: historic aerial views of your farm
Many fruit growing families have connections to their land going back over a century. For numerous reasons, public and private entities have used mapping, aerial photography, and satellite imagery to document land use. Over the last decade many organizations have begun to digitize this imagery and make it available online.
Below are several links to resources that growers may find useful to see how a property has changed over time. These tools may help answer questions about how the present-day farm came to exist. What building sat on that old foundation? What year was the irrigation pond dug? What crops grew here before it was a fruit farm? In some cases, these images reveal how thousands of acres of farmland became neighborhoods and commercial developments.
Viewing these historic images may be simply a fun diversion or they may offer valuable information when planning buildings, plantings, or landscape changes. The links below are […]
Photo courtesy of U of M