J. Alex Thomasson

Agricultural Autonomy, Precision Agriculture, Remote Sensing, Drones, Image Analysis, Optoelectronic Sensors, Cotton Production and Processing
Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Office: 150 Agricultural and Biological Engineering
athomasson@abe.msstate.edu
P 662.325.3282

• Ph.D., Agricultural Engineering, University of Kentucky.
• M.S., Agricultural Engineering, Louisiana State University.
• B.S., Agricultural Engineering, Texas Tech University.

• July 2020 – Present, Professor, Department Head, and William B. and Sherry Berry Endowed Chair, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS
• 2005 – 2020, Professor and Endowed Chair of Cotton Engineering, Ginning, and Mechanization, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
• 1997 – 2004, Assistant/Associate Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS
• 1989 – 1997, Agricultural Engineer/Research Scientist, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Stoneville, MS

• Precision Agriculture
• Remote Sensing
• Image Analysis
• Spectroscopy
• Drones
• Optoelectronic Sensors
• Cotton Production and Processing
• Instrumentation and Control Systems
• Design of Machines and Components
• Bioenergy

• Agricultural Autonomy and Robotics
• Optical Sensing Technologies for Agricultural Applications
• Rural and Remote Broadband Wireless
• Calibration of Remote Sensing Images Collected with Drones

Research Publications

• Thomasson, J. A.  1992.  Recalibration interval for color/trash meters in cotton gins.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 8(2):147-151.
• Thomasson, J. A.  1993.  Foreign matter effects on cotton color measurement: determination and correction.  Trans. ASAE 36(3):663-669.
• Thomasson, J. A., C. W. Bennett, B. D. Jackson, and M. P. Mailander.  1994.  Differentiating bottomland tree species with multispectral videography.  Photogram. Eng. Remote Sens. 60:55-59.
• Thomasson, J. A., and R. A. Taylor.  1995.  Color relationships between lint and seed cotton.  Trans. ASAE 38(1):13-22.
• Thomasson, J. A., M. P. Menguc, and S. A. Shearer.  1995.  Radiative transfer model for relating NIR and Micronaire measurements of cotton fibers.  Trans. ASAE 38(2):367-377.
• Thomasson, J. A.  1995.  Cotton moisture measurement with a black-and-white video camera.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 11(3):371-375.
• Thomasson, J. A., and M. A. Rousselle.  1995.  Device for on-line heat detoxification of cotton in a gin.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 11(4):499-505.
• Thomasson, J. A., and S. A. Shearer.  1995.  Correlation of NIR data with cotton quality characteristics.  Trans. ASAE 38(4):1005-1010.
• Thomasson, J. A., and M. H. Willcutt.  1996.  Wetting method for initiating composting in cotton gin waste.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 12(4):417-425.
• Shearer, S. A., J. A. Thomasson, S. G. McNeill.  1996.  Filter selection for NIR sensing of plant and soil materials.  Trans. ASAE 39(3):1209-1214.
• Rousselle, M. A., J. B. Price, J. A. Thomasson, and D. T. W. Chun.  1996. Heat treatment of cotton: effect on endotoxin content, fiber and yarn properties, and processability.  Textile Res. J. 66(11):727-738.
• Thomasson, J. A., D. A. Pennington, H. C. Pringle, E. P. Columbus, S. J. Thomson, and R. K. Byler.  1999.  Cotton mass flow measurement: experiments with two optical devices.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 15(1):11-17.
• Thomasson, J. A. 1999.  Cotton color instrumentation accuracy: temperature and calibration procedure effects.  Trans. ASAE 42(2):293-307.
• Thomson, S. J., J. A. Thomasson, and D. P. Whitelock.  1999.  Mass flow assessment of particulate in lint cleaner waste – sensor evaluation and model adaptation.  Trans. ASAE 42(2):513-521.
• Thomasson, J. A., R. Sui, M. S. Cox, and A. Al-Rajehy.  2001.  Soil reflectance sensing for determining soil properties in precision agriculture.  Trans. ASAE 44(6):1445-1453.
• Sui, R., and J. A. Thomasson.  2002.  Test of temperature and stray-light effects on mass-flow sensor for cotton yield monitor.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 18(4):127-132.
• Aslan, M., J. Yamada, M. P. Mengüç, and J. A. Thomasson.  2003.  Characterization of individual cotton fibers via light scattering experiments.  J. Thermophysics & Heat Transfer 17(4):442-450.
• Thomasson, J. A., and R. Sui.  2003.  Mississippi cotton yield monitor: three years of field test results.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 19(6):631-636.
• Sui, R., J. A. Thomasson, R. Mehrle, M. Dale, C. Perry, and G. Rains.  2003.  Mississippi cotton yield monitor: beta test for commercialization.  Comput. Electron. Agric. 42:149-160.
• Thomasson, J. A., S. A. Shearer, and R. K. Byler.  2005.  Image-processing solution to cotton color measurement problems.  Part I: instrument design and construction.  Trans. ASAE 48(2):421-438.
• Thomasson, J. A., S. A. Shearer, and D. L. Boykin.  2005.  Image-processing solution to cotton color measurement problems.  Part II: instrument test and evaluation.  Trans. ASAE 48(2):439-454.
• Iqbal, J., J. J. Read, J. A. Thomasson, and J. N. Jenkins.  2005.  Relationships between soil-landscape and dryland cotton lint yield.  Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 69:872-882.
• Iqbal, J., J. A. Thomasson, J. N. Jenkins, P. R. Owens, and F. D. Whisler.  2005.  Spatial variability analysis of soil physical properties of alluvial soils.  Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 69(4):1338–1350.
• Ge, Y., and J. A. Thomasson.  2006.  Wavelet incorporated spectral analysis for soil property determination.  Trans. ASABE 49(4):1193-1201.
• Thomasson, J. A., R. Sui, G. C. Wright, and A. Robson.  2006.  Optical peanut yield monitor: development and testing.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 22(6):809-818.
• Zhai, Y., J. A. Thomasson, J. E. Boggess, and R. Sui.  2006.  Soil texture classification with artificial neural networks operating on remote sensing data.  Comput. Electron. Agric. 54(2):53-68.
• Sui, R., and J. A. Thomasson.  2006.  Ground-based sensing system for cotton nitrogen status determination.  Trans. ASABE 49(6): 1983-1991.
• Ge, Y., C. L. S. Morgan, and J. A. Thomasson.  2007.  A new perspective to near infrared reflectance spectroscopy: a wavelet approach.  Trans. ASABE 50(1):303-311.
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, C. L. S. Morgan, and S. W. Searcy.  2007.  VNIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for agricultural soil property determination based on regression kriging.  Trans. ASABE 50(3):1081-1092.
• Sui, Ruixiu, J. A. Thomasson, J. Hanks, and J. Wooten. 2008. Ground-based sensing system for weed mapping in cotton. Comput. Electron. Agric. 60 (1):31-38.
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, R, Sui, C. L. S. Morgan, S. W. Searcy, and C. B. Parnell.  2008.  Spatial variation of fiber quality and associated loan rate in a dryland cotton field.  Precision Agric. 9(4):181-194.
• Sui, R., J. A. Thomasson, Y. Ge, C. Morgan.  2008.  Multispectral Sensor for In-Situ Cotton Fiber Quality Measurement. Trans. ASABE 51(6): 2201-2208.
• Wei, L., J. A. Thomasson, M. R. Bricka, R. Sui, J. R. Wooten, and E. P. Columbus.  2009.  Syn-gas quality evaluation for biomass gasification with a downdraft gasifier.  Trans. ASABE 52(1):21-37.
• Thomasson, J. A., S. Manickavasagam, and M. P. Mengüç.  2009.  Cotton fiber quality characterization with light scattering and Fourier transform infrared techniques.  Applied Spectroscopy 63(3):321-330.
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, R. Sui, and C. L. S. Morgan.  2009.  A module-specific post-processing calibration method to improve cotton yield mapping.  Comput. Electron. Agric. 68: 161-167.
• Thomasson, J. A. and R. Sui.  2009.  Cotton leaf reflectance changes after removal from the plant.  J. Cotton Sci. 13(3): 206-211.
• Sui, R., J. A. Thomasson, and S. D. F. To.  2010.  Cotton-harvester-flow simulator for testing cotton yield monitors.  Intl. J. Agric. & Biol. Eng. 3(1): 44-49.
• Sui, R., J. A. Thomasson, R. K. Byler, J. C. Boykin, and E. M. Barnes.  2010.  Effect of machine-fiber interaction on cotton fiber quality and foreign-matter particle attachment to the fiber.  J. Cotton Sci. 14:145–153.
• Lee, K. -M., P. R. Armstrong, J. A. Thomasson, R. Sui, M. Casada and T. J. Herrman.  2010.  Development and characterization of food-grade tracers for the global grain tracing and recall system.  J. Agric. Food Chem. 58(20):10945–10957.
• Sjolander, A. J., J. A. Thomasson, R. Sui, and Y. Ge.  2011.  Wireless tracking of cotton modules. Part 1: automatic message triggering.  Comput. Electron. Agric. 75(1):23-33.
• Sjolander, A. J., J. A. Thomasson, R. Sui, and Y. Ge.  2011.  Wireless tracking of cotton modules.  Part 2: automatic machine identification and system testing.  Comput. Electron. Agric. 75(1):34-43.
• Lee, K. -M., P. R. Armstrong, J. A. Thomasson, R. Sui, M. Casada and T. J. Herrman.  2011.  Application of binomial and multinomial probability statistics to the sampling design process of a global grain tracing and recall system.  Food Control 22: 1085-1094.
• Sui, R., B. E. Hartley, J. M. Gibson, C.Yang, J. A. Thomasson, and S. W. Searcy.  2011.  High-biomass sorghum yield estimate with aerial imagery.  J. Appl. Remote Sens. 5(3523):1-9.
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, and R. Sui.  2011.  Remote sensing of soil properties in precision agriculture: a review.  Front. Earth Sci. (DOI: 10.1007/s11707-011-0175-0).
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, R. Sui, and J. R. Wooten.  2011.  Regression-kriging for characterizing soils with remote sensing data.  Front. Earth Sci. (DOI: 10.1007/s11707-011-0174-1).
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, C. L. S. Morgan, S. Stanislav, and R. Sui.  2011.  Cotton revenue apportioned between lint yield and fiber quality: a precision agriculture perspective.  J. Cotton Sci. 15:274–281.
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, and R. Sui.  2012.  Wireless-and-GPS system for cotton fiber quality mapping.  Precision Agric. 13:90-103.
• Liang, K., J. A. Thomasson, K.-M. Lee, M. Shen, Y. Ge, and T. Herrman.  2012.  Printing Data Matrix Code on Food-Grade Tracers for Grain Traceability.  Biosystems Engineering 113(4): 395–401.
• Sui, R., J. A. Thomasson, and Y. Ge.  2012.  Development of sensor systems for precision agriculture in cotton.  Int. J. Agric. & Biol. Eng. 5(4): 1-14.
• Liang, , K., J. A. Thomasson, M. X. Shen, P. R. Armstrong, Y. Ge, K. M. Lee, and T. J. Herrman.  2013.  Ruggedness of 2D code printed on grain tracers for implementing a prospective grain traceability system to the bulk grain delivery system.  Food Control 33(2013) 359-365.
• Ge, Y., J. A. Thomasson, and C. L. S. Morgan.  2014.  Mid infrared attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy for soil carbon and particle size determination.  Geoderma 213:57–63.
• Yang, C., G. N. Odvody, C. J. Fernandez, J. A. Landivar, R. R. Minzenmayer, R. L. Nichols, and J. A. Thomasson.  2014.  Monitoring cotton root rot progression within a growing season using airborne multispectral imagery.  J. Cotton Sci. 18:85–93.
• Searcy, S. W., B. E. Hartley, and J. A. Thomasson.  2014.  Evaluation of a modular system for low cost transport and storage of herbaceous biomass.  BioEnergy Res. 7(3):824-832.
• Song, H., C. Yang, J. Zhang, D. He, and J. A. Thomasson.  2015.  Combining fuzzy set theory and nonlinear stretching enhancement for unsupervised classification of cotton root rot.  J. Appl. Remote Sens. 9 (1), 096013; doi: 10.1117/1.JRS.9.096013.
• Batz, J., M. Mendez, and J. A. Thomasson.  2016.  Imaging for high-throughput phenotyping in energy sorghum.  J. Imaging 2016, 2, 4.
• Yang, C., G. N. Odvody, J. A. Thomasson, T. Isakeit, and R. L. Nichols.  2016.  Change detection of cotton root rot infection over 10-year intervals using airborne multispectral imagery.  Comput. Electron. Agric. 123(1):154-162.
• Ge, Y., and J. A. Thomasson.  2016.  NIR reflectance and MIR attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy for characterizing algal biomass composition.  Trans. ASABE 59(2):1-8.
• Cribben, C. D., J. A. Thomasson, Y. Ge, C. L. S. Morgan, C. Yang, T. Isakeit, and R. L. Nichols.  2016.  Site-specific relationships between cotton root rot and soil properties.  J. Cotton Sci. 20:60-75.
• Song, H., C. Yang, J. Zhang, W. C. Hoffmann, D. He, and J. A. Thomasson.  2016.  Comparison of mosaicking techniques for airborne images from consumer-grade cameras.  J. Appl. Remote Sens. 10(1), 016030 (March 29, 2016); doi: 10.1117/1.JRS.10.016030.
• Shi, Y., J. A. Thomasson‎, S. C. Murray, N. A. Pugh, W. L. Rooney, S. Shafian, N. Rajan, G. Rouze, C. L. S. Morgan, H. L. Neely, A. Rana, M. V. Bagavathiannan, J. Henrickson, E. Bowden,   J. Valasek, J. Olsenholler, M. P. Bishop, R. Sheridan, E. B. Putman, S. Popescu, T. Burks, D. Cope, A. Ibrahim, B. F. McCutchen, D. D. Baltensperger, R. V. Avant Jr., M. Vidrine, and C. Yang.  2016.  Unmanned aerial vehicles for high-throughput phenotyping and agronomic research.  PLOS One DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0159781.
• Bagnall, G. C., J. A. Thomasson, and Y. Ge.  2016.  Animal-drawn conservation-tillage planter designed for small farms in the developing world.  Appl. Eng. Agric. 32(6): 791-799.
• Schielack, V. P., J. A. Thomasson, and R. Sui.  2016.  Harvester-based sensing system for cotton fiber quality mapping.  J. Cotton Sci. 20: 386-393.
• Olivares, J., P. J Lammers, M. Huesemann, W. Boeing, D. B. Anderson, R. G. Arnold, X. Bai; K. Balachandran, M. Bohle, Y. Brhanavan, L. Brown, J. Brown, J. K. Brown, S. Chisholm, C. M. Downes, S. Fulbright, Y. Ge. J. E. Holladay, A. Khopkar, A. Koushik, P. Laur, B. L. Marrone, J. B. Mott, N. Nirmalakhandan, K. L. Ogden, R. L. Parsons, J. Polle, R. D. Ryan, T. Samocha, M. Seger, T. Selvaratnam, R. Sui, J. A. Thomasson, A. Unc, W. Van Voorhies, P. Waller, and Y. Yao.  2016.  Review of the cultivation program within the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts.  Algal Research 22: -186.
• Wang, R., J. A. Thomasson, R. Sui, and E. G. Marley.  2017.  Cotton fiber-quality prediction based on spatial variability in soils.  J. Cotton Sci. 21:220–228.
• Yao, Y., Y. Ge, J. A. Thomasson, and R. Sui.  2018.  Algae optical density sensor for pond monitoring and production process control.  Int. J. Agric. Bio. Eng. 11(1):212-217.
• Yang, C., G. N. Odvody, J. A. Thomasson, T. S. Isakeit, R. R. Minzenmayer, D. R. Drake, and R. L. Nichols.  2018.  Site-specific management of cotton root rot using airborne and high resolution satellite imagery and variable rate technology.  Trans. ASABE 61(3):849-858.
• Hosseinali, F., and J. A. Thomasson.  2018.  Variability of fiber friction among cotton varieties: influence of salient fiber physical metrics.  Tribology Int. 127(1):433-445.
• Hosseinali, F., and J. A. Thomasson.  2018.  Multiscale frictional properties of cotton fibers: a review.  Fibers 6:49; DOI: 10.3390/fib6030049.
• Pugh, N. A., X Han, S. D. Collins, J. A. Thomasson, D. A. Cope, A. Chang, J. Jung, T. S. Isakeit, L. K. Prom, G. Carvalho, I. T. Gates, A. Vree, G. C. Bagnall, and W. L. Rooney.  2018.  Estimation of plant health in a sorghum field infected with anthracnose using a fixed-wing unmanned aerial system.  J. Crop Improvement 32:6, 861-877, DOI: 10.1080/15427528.2018.1535462.
• Han, X., J. A. Thomasson, G. C. Bagnall, N. A. Pugh, D. Horne, W.  L. Rooney, J. Jung, A. Chang, L. Malambo, S. Popescu, I. Gates, and D. A. Cope.  2018.  Measurement and calibration of plant-height from fixed-wing UAV images.  Sensors 18:4092; DOI:10.3390/s18124092
• Anderson, S. J., S. C. Murray, L. Malambo, C. Ratliff, S. Popescu, D. A. Cope, A. Chang, J. Jung, and J. A. Thomasson.  2019.  Prediction of maize grain yield before maturity using improved temporal height estimates of unmanned aerial systems.  Plant Phenome J. 2(1); doi:10.2135/tppj2019.02.0004.
• Han, X., J. A. Thomasson, Y. Xiang, H. Gharakhani, P. K. Yadav, and W. L. Rooney.  2019.  Multifunctional ground control points with a wireless network for communication with a UAV.  Sensors 19:2852; doi: 10.3390/s19132852.
• Hosseinali, F., and J. A. Thomasson.  2019.  Probing of nanoscale friction and mechanical characteristics of cotton fiber’s surface   Fibers 7(7), 64; doi.org/10.3390/fib7070064.
• Park, J., J. A. Thomasson, S. Fernando, K.-M. Lee, and T. J. Herrman.  2019.  Complexes formed by hydrophobic interaction between Ag-nanospheres and adsorbents for the detection of methyl salicylate VOC.  Nanomaterials 9(11):1621; doi.org/10.3390/nano9111621.
• Park, J., J. A. Thomasson, K.-M. Lee, C. P.-C. Suh, J. L. Perez, and T. J. Herrman.  2020.  VOCs determination by adsorbent-Raman system in food and botanicals.  Analytical Methods doi:10.1039/d0ay00180e.
• Park, J., J. A. Thomasson, C. C. Gale, G. Sword, K.-M. Lee, T. J. Herrman, and C. P.-C. Suh.  2020.  Adsorbent-SERS technique for determination of plant VOCs from live cotton plants and dried teas.  ACS Omega 5, 2779−2790 doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b03500
• Han, X., J. A. Thomasson, T. Wang, and V. Swaminathan.  2020.  Autonomous mobile ground control point improves accuracy of agricultural remote sensing through collaboration with UAV.  Inventions 5, 12; doi:10.3390/inventions5010012.
• Wang, T., J. A. Thomasson, C. Yang, T. Isakeit, and R. L. Nichols.  2020.  Automatic classification of cotton root rot disease based on UAV remote sensing.  Remote Sensing 12(8); doi: 10.3390/rs12081310.
• Cholula, U., J. A. da Silva, T. Marconi, J. A. Thomasson, J. Solorzano, and J. Enciso.  2020.  Forecasting yield and lignocellusic composition of energy cane using unmanned aerial systems.  Agronomy 10(5); doi: 10.3390/agronomy10050718.
• Park, J., J. A. Thomasson, Z. Gorman, M. Brewer, W. L. Rooney, and M. Kolomiets.  2020.  Multivariate analysis of sorghum volatiles for the fast screening of sugarcane aphid infestation.  J. Asia-Pac. Entomol.; doi: 10.1016/j.aspen.2020.07.014.
• Wang, T., J. A. Thomasson, T. S. Isakeit, C. Yang, and R. L. Nichols.  2020.  A plant-by-plant cotton root rot identification method based on UAV remote sensing.  Remote Sens. 12(15), 2453; doi.org/10.3390/rs12152453.
• Wang, T., J. A. Thomasson, C. Yang, T. Isakeit, R. L. Nichols, R. M. Collett, X. Han, and G. C. Bagnall.  2020.  UAV remote sensing to delineate cotton root rot.  J. Appl. Remote Sens. 14(3), 034522; doi: 10.1117/1.JRS.14.034522.
• Han, X., J. A. Thomasson, V. Swaminathan, T. Wang, J. Siegfried, R. Raman, N. Rajan, and H. Neely.  2020.  Field-based calibration of unmanned aerial vehicle thermal infrared imagery with temperature-controlled references.  Sensors 20:7098; doi: 10.3390/s20247098.
• White, E. L., J. A. Thomasson, B. Auvermann, N. R. Kitchen, L. S. Pierson, D. Porter, C. Baillie, H. Hamann, G. Hoogenboom, T. Janzen, R. Khosla, J. Lowenberg-DeBoer, M. McIntosh, S. Murray, D. Osborn, A. Shetty, C. Stevenson, J. Tevis, and F. Werner.  2020.  Report from the conference, ‘identifying obstacles to applying big data in agriculture.’  Precis. Agric. 22(1)306-315; doi: 10.1007/s11119-020-09738-y.
• Shangguan, L., J. A. Thomasson, and S. Gopalswamy.  2021.  Motion planning for autonomous grain carts.  IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol. (in press).

Book Chapters

• Thomasson, J. A.  2003.  Remote sensing in agriculture.  In Encyclopedia of Agricultural, Food, and Biological Engineering.  New York: Marcel Dekker.
• Sui, R., and J. A. Thomasson.  2012.  Mechanization, Sensing, and Control in Cotton Production.  In Agricultural Automation: Fundamentals and Practices.  Boca Raton, Fla: CRC Press.
• Bishop, M. P., M. V. Bagavathiannan, D. A. Cope, D. Huo, S. C. Murray, J. A. Olsenholler, W. L. Rooney, J. A. Thomasson, J. Valasek, B. W. Young, A. M. Filippi, D. B. Hays, L. Malambo, S. C. Popescu, N. Rajan, V. P. Singh, B. McCutchen, R. Avant, and M. Vidrine.  2018.  High-resolution UAS Imagery in Agricultural Research: Concepts, Issues, and Research Directions.  In High Spatial Resolution Remote Sensing: Data, Analysis, and Applications.  Boca Raton, Fla: CRC Press.

Popular Press

• Thomasson, J. A.  1990.  A summary of research in cotton gin trash disposal.  Cotton Gin and Oil Mill Press 91(2):8-9.
• Thomasson, J. A., and W. S. Anthony.  1990.  Potential methods for disposal of cotton gin trash.  Cotton Gin and Oil Mill Press 91(19):5-9.
• Herrman, T. J., and J. A. Thomasson.  2011.  Grain traceability and its role in food safety.  Cereal Foods World 56(4):157-161.  [INVITED]
• Thomasson, J. A.  2015.  Farmers of the future will utilize drones, robots and GPS.  The Conversation, March 18.  [INVITED]
• Thomasson, J. A., G. Santos, and A. Basu.  2016.  How would google farm?  Analytics Magazine, March/April 2016.
• Thomasson, J. A., and J. Valasek.  2016.  Small UAS in agricultural remote-sensing research at Texas A&M.  2016.  Resource, July/August 2016.  [INVITED]
• Woldt, W., J. A. Thomasson, and J. Valasek.  2016.  Unmanned aircraft systems: all types and sizes.  Resource, May/June 2016.  [INVITED]