[Discussion on hyperspectral index for the estimation of cotton canopy water content].

Proper vegetation indices have decisive influences on the precision of hyperspectral estimation models for surface parameters. In the present paper, in order to find the proper hyperspectral indices for cotton canopy water content estimation, two water parameters for cotton canopy water content (EWT(canopy), equivalent water thickness; VWC, vegetation water content) and corresponding hyperspectra data were analyzed. A rigorous search procedure was used to determine the best index predictors of cotton canopy water. In the procedure, all possible ratio indices and normalized difference indices were derived from the canopy hyperspectra, involving all the two-band combinations between 350 nm and 2500 nm. Then the correlation between two water parameters and all combination indices were analyzed, and the best indices which produced maximum correlation coefficients were determined. Finally, the indices were compared with the published water indices for their performances in estimation of cotton canopy water content. The results showed that for the estimation of EWT(canopy), the new developed ratio index R1 475/R1 424 and normalized difference index (R1 475 -R1 424)/(R1 475 + R1 424) was the most proper one, and the correlation coefficient of the estimated and measured EWT(canopy) reached 0.849. For the estimation of VWC, the performance of published index was better than new developed index, the best suitable water indices for VWC estimation were (R835 - R1 650)/(R835 + R1 650), and the correlation coefficient of the estimated and measured VWC was 0.849.

Quantifying biochemical variables of corn by hyperspectral reflectance at leaf scale.

To further develop the methods to remotely sense the biochemical content of plant canopies, we report the results of an experiment to estimate the concentrations of three biochemical variables of corn, i.e., nitrogen (N), crude fat (EE) and crude fiber (CF) concentrations, by spectral reflectance and the first derivative reflectance at fresh leaf scale. The correlations between spectral reflectance and the first derivative transformation and three biochemical variables were analyzed, and a set of estimation models were established using curve-fitting analyses. Coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE) and relative error of prediction (REP) of estimation models were calculated for the model quality evaluations, and the possible optimum estimation models of three biochemical variables were proposed, with R2 being 0.891, 0.698 and 0.480 for the estimation models of N, EE and CF concentrations, respectively. The results also indicate that using the first derivative reflectance was better than using raw spectral reflectance for all three biochemical variables estimation, and that the first derivative reflectances at 759 nm, 1954 nm and 2370 nm were most suitable to develop the estimation models of N, EE and CF concentrations, respectively. In addition, the high correlation coefficients of the theoretical and the measured biochemical parameters were obtained, especially for nitrogen (r=0.948).

Monitoring rice nitrogen status using hyperspectral reflectance and artificial neural network.

Over use of nitrogen fertilization can result in groundwater pollution. Tools that can rapidly quantify the nitrogen status are needed for efficient fertilizer management and would be very helpful in reducing the environmental pollution caused by excessive nitrogen application. Remote sensing has a proven ability to provide spatial and temporal measurements of surface properties. In this study, the MLR (multiple linear regression) and ANN (artificial neural network) modeling methods were applied to the monitoring of rice N (nitrogen concentration, mg nitrogen g(-1) leaf dry weight) status using leaf level hyperspectral reflectance with two different input variables, and as a result four estimation models were proposed. RMSE (root-mean-square error), REP (relative error of prediction), R2 (coefficient of determination), as well as the intercept and slope between the observed and predicted N were used to test the performance of models. Very good agreements between the observed and the predicted N were obtained with all proposed models, which was especially true for the R-ANN (artificial neural network based on reflectance selected using MLR) model. Compared to the other three models, the R-ANN model improved the results by lowering the RMSE by 14.2%, 32.1%, and 31.5% for the R-LR (linear regression based on reflectance) model, PC-LR (linear regression based on principal components scores) model, and PC-ANN (artificial neural network based on principal components scores) model, respectively. It was concluded that the ANN algorithm may provide a useful exploratory and predictive tool when applied on hyperspectral reflectance data for nitrogen status monitoring. Besides, although the performance of MLR was superior to PCA used for ANN inputs selection, the encouraging results of PC-based models indicated the promising potential of ANN combined with PCA application on hyperspectral reflectance analysis.