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There is a trend of significantly more people to be employed in the agro-food sector in Southern Europe lately, mainly due to the changes occurred in the E.U. economy the last years. However, there is definitely a challenge that has to be met in order to obtain competitive agricultural products, and has to do with the management of natural resources (soil, water and energy). Eleagro (developed by GeoAnalysis S.A.) is developing a tool for remote crop monitoring with the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and satellites, aiming at using these technologies for precision agriculture management. Remote sensing is advantageous over traditional methods of plant and soil sampling, because it offers the potential for quick area mapping of soil and plant properties and allows for quantification of crop variation (e.g. nutrient deficiency or sufficiency, pest and disease attacks and infestations, water stress and faulty irrigation equipment detection and weed infestation). Remote sensing in agriculture is predicted to be in the near future the main methodology of data acquisition from agricultural field parcels, due to the physical evolution of satellite technology providing better spatial resolution and lower cost image acquisition. The creation of crop information with the use of remote sensing techniques is expected to aid in the connection between the crop management knowledge obtained through long experimentation and the spatial analysis of the problems that need to be managed. Thus, treatments available at the disposal of the growers have to be targeted towards specific management zones in the field and should not be broadcasted uniformly over the whole area, increasing the cost of plant protection and damaging the environment. The same principle applies for plant nutrition. GeoAnalysis S.A. also, along with crop monitoring, is developing pest management techniques, using natural or bio-physical means for the reduction of the agro-ecosystem pathogenesis. The present work has assessed thermal imagery and plant analysis as tools for early detection of Verticillium wilt, in accordance with an 11-point calibration scale, which was based on visual observation of the disease symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]