Sugarcane leaf area estimate obtained from the corrected Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

• Main Authors: Rodrigo Moura Pereira, Derblai Casaroli, Lucas Melo Vellame, José Alves Júnior, Adão Wagner Pêgo Evangelista
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Goiás 2016-06-01
• Series: Pesquisa Agropecuária Tropical
• Subjects: Saccharum spp.; vegetal growth; image analysis
• Online Access: https://www.revistas.ufg.br/pat/article/view/39303/21157

Large farmland areas and the knowledge on the interaction between solar radiation and vegetation canopies have increased the use of data from orbital remote sensors in sugarcane monitoring. However, the constituents of the atmosphere affect the reflectance values obtained by imaging sensors. This study aimed at improving a sugarcane Leaf Area Index (LAI) estimation model, concerning the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) subjected to atmospheric correction. The model generated by the NDVI with atmospheric correction showed the best results (R2 = 0.84; d = 0.95; MAE = 0.44; RMSE = 0.55), in relation to the other models compared. LAI estimation with this model, during the sugarcane plant cycle, reached a maximum of 4.8 at the vegetative growth phase and 2.3 at the end of the maturation phase. Thus, the use of atmospheric correction to estimate the sugarcane LAI is recommended, since this procedure increases the correlations between the LAI estimated by image and by plant parameters.