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Water stress has been one of the most serious threat to the crop growth, development and yield quality in agricultural fields. Timely and accurate diagnosis of crop water stress can greatly contribute to the precision irrigation for the crop resilience and yield. In this study, the research object was taken from the summer maize in the typical dryland agricultural area of northwest China. A six-channel multispectral sensor was mounted on a drone to obtain the remote sensing image data of summer maize at the nodulatione and staminate pulling stage in 2022. At the same time, the stomatal conductance and phenotypic parameters of summer maize were also collected. The background was removed by supervised classification. The canopy vegetation index and image texture were obtained using the gray-scale covariance matrix. The sensitive vegetation index, image texture and phenotypic parameters and their combinations were screened out by the Bayesian information criterion and full subset filtering. The summer maize stomatal conductance estimation model was constructed to combine the three types of machine learnings: the extreme learning machine, the random forest, and the back-propagation neural network. The optimal model was mapped to estimate the stomatal conductance. The Pearson correlation coefficient of vegetation index and stomatal conductance were significantly positively correlated, whereas, the canopy reflectance of summer maize was weakly negatively correlated. Different types of image textures at different wavelengths were correlated with the stomatal conductance, and the highest correlation was found in the 550 nm band. The Pearson correlation coefficients between morphological structure phenotypes (plant height, stem thickness and leaf area) and stomatal conductance of summer maize were 0.72, 0.58 and 0.69, respectively, where the three types of phenotypic parameters data were correlated well with stomatal conductance. Vegetation indices with spectral reflectance data were used to assess the overall health and moisture status of the vegetation. Image texture was used to capture the spatial distribution, texture and structural features of crops. Crop phenotypic parameters were then used to reflect the physiological and morphological responses of the crop in a three-dimensional manner, providing visual information about the growth and moisture of the vegetation. The decision coefficients of the crop water stress diagnostic models that constructed from the three information sources increased from 0.728 and 0.750 to 0.841, respectively, compared with the single or two combinations, indicating the great potential to stomatal conductance prediction. The optimal combination of indicators was screened by Bayesian information criterion and full subset screening: DWSI, NDVI, MEA, ENT, plant height and leaf area. The back-propagation neural network model with the three complementary information sources was the optimal model for the water stress diagnosis of summer maize (coefficient of determination of 0.841, root mean square error of 0.043 mol/(m2 ·s), and mean absolute error of 0.034 mol/(m² ·s)). The underestimation of stomatal conductance was significantly improved, compared with the rest models. The inverse map with the optimal model was widely applied to easily and accurately diagnose the crop water stress for the purpose of irrigation strategies and resource allocation. The finding can provide a feasible and accurate diagnosis of water stress in summer maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Timely and accurate detection of crop water stress is vital for precision irrigation. Whether the accuracy of the prevailing diagnosis of crop water stress using vegetation indices (VIs) and spectral reflectance can be improved still remains to be investigated. The crop surface characteristics such as grayscale or color vary under different water stress, so in this study one more variable, image texture, was utilized together to diagnose water stress. For this end, the canopy image of winter wheat in bloom was obtained by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with multispectral sensor, and the effect of soil background was eliminated using vegetation index threshold method. On this basis, Grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) was used to calculate the mean (MEA), variance (VAR), homogeneity (HOM), contrast (CON), dissimilarity (DIS), entropy (ENT), second moment (SEC) and correlation (COR) of the image texture under different spatial resolutions (0.008 m, 0.01 m, 0.02 m, 0.05 m, 0.1 m and 0.2 m). Next, the canopy vegetation indices were obtained by mathematical transformation of canopy reflectance, and then sensitive image texture and vegetation indices by full subset regression method. Finally, Cubist, BPNN (Back Propagation Neural Network) and ELM (Extreme Learning Machine) methods were adopted to build the estimation models of the stomatal conductance (Gs) of winter wheat (between the sensitive image texture and Gs, and between vegetation index and Gs), and the water stress map was plotted based on the optimal Gs estimation model. The result showed: (i) the image texture obtained from the high-resolution multispectral image had a high correlation with Gs, and the image texture (VAR, HOM, CON, DIS, ENT and SEC) at 550 nm had the most significant correlation; (ii) the higher the ground resolution, the higher the correlation between the Gs and the image texture, the vegetation indices, respectively. The image texture with a ground resolution of 0.008 m combined with VIs and Gs had the highest correlation, and combining image texture and vegetation index can significantly improve the estimation accuracy of winter wheat Gs; (iii) Among the three estimation models, the BPNN model constructed by combining the image texture and VIs (MEA, VAR, ENT, DWSI and EXG) had the best estimation performance (Calibration: R c 2 = 0.899, RMSE c = 0.01, MAE c = 0.006; Validation: R c 2 = 0.834, RMSE v =;0.018, MAE v = 0.014), and an accurate estimation could even be achieved at a lower Gs value. Compared with the BPNN model solely based on VIs or image texture, the R c 2 of the BPNN model based on the combined variables increased by 24% and 22.48%, respectively. Therefore, combining UAV multispectral image texture and VIs to estimate Gs provides a feasible and accurate method for water stress diagnosis of winter wheat. • The incorporation of texture improved the accuracy of water stress diagnoses with VIs. • BPNN model with VIs and texture provided the highest accuracy of Gs estimation. • UAV provides a feasible and accurate method for water stress diagnosis of winter wheat. • Removing soil background and screening methods improve the quality of remote sensing data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop lodging detrimentally affects crop yield and mechanical harvest efficiency. Traditional remote sensing-based methods primarily focus on the identification and area extraction of lodging using image texture and spectrum. However, the response of image texture and spectrum to lodging is indirect and varies under diverse conditions. Moreover, other important finer details of lodging phenotyping, such as lodging angle and lodging type, have frequently been neglected. In this study, a robust and accurate method was developed for investigating lodging phenotypes in the field. The method was based on the three-dimensional morphological information of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) canopy reconstructed from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images. In contrast to traditional remote sensing methods that only identify lodging targets and their respective areas, the novel method in this study calculated the total lodging angle (TLA), root lodging angle (RLA), stem lodging angle (SLA = TLA - RLA), and lodging types according to a morphological method and a lodging classification model. Initially, the method employed a geometric model to characterize the stalk shape of lodged rapeseed. After assessing numerous lodging samples from individual rapeseed plants, the circle function was identified as the optimal geometric model. With this optimal function, the canopy height derived from the UAV images was found effective in calculating TLA, RLA, and SLA across 24 rapeseed cultivars in five climatic zones within the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) in China. Results showed that the average root mean square error (RMSE) was 8.3° for TLA and 7.4° for RLA. Subsequently, based on field measured data of SLA and RLA, a decision tree model was constructed to classify lodging types and an accuracy of 95.4% was achieved. Using the classification model and estimated values of RLA and SLA, the spatial distribution information and specific area estimates for different lodging types were obtained. Based on the analysis of these results, the rapeseed cultivars Zhongshuang 11 and Dadi 199 were determined to be the dominant cultivars with lodging resistance in the YRB, even though they did not achieve the mean high yields in multiple climatic zones. However, the lodging-prone cultivars such as Qinyou7 and Qinyou33 fell under the low-yield level in all climatic zones. The robust and cost-effective method proposed in this study for acquiring detailed crop lodging phenotyping data has the potential to enhance mechanized harvesting, accurately estimate the risk of low yield, and assess the lodging status of various crops. • Circle functions can simulate most stalk shapes of lodged rapeseed. • Two phases of UAV images are found effective to estimate total lodging angle. • Root and stem lodging angle can be estimated using circle functions and UAV images. • Lodging types can be distinguished by root lodging angle and stem lodging angle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultra-high-resolution aerial images obtained from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have widely been used to extract crop planting information in recent years. However, some high-resolution multispectral or hyperspectral images were usually costly and time-consuming for data processing. Therefore, it is very necessary to effectively use easily accessible and low-cost high-resolution RGB images, particularly to eliminate the common noises (e.g., shadows and bare land) for a better extraction accuracy of crop planting. In this study, a high-precision extraction method was proposed to obtain the maize planting information using 1.8 cm resolution UAV aerial orthophotos (i.e., RGB images). The experimental maize farm was located in Southeast Africa, where images were taken at noon during the maize growing season. The classification features were also selected from the aspects of the spectrum, color space, and image texture. Then, five types of classification were selected to extract maize planting information, including Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree (DT), and Random Forest (RF) algorithms). Firstly, an object-oriented interpreting platform (eCognition9.0 software) was selected to calculate the space transform of Hue, Saturation, and Intensity (HSI) color, eight types of RGB texture, and five vegetation indices, including the normalized green-red difference index, red-green ratio index, vegetation color verification index, visible-band difference vegetation index, and excess green vegetation index. Then, three types of feature space were constructed: 1) The first feature space was composed of three sub-feature spaces, i.e., vegetation indices, HSI color space features, and RGB image texture features; 2) The second feature space was composed of four sub-feature spaces, where three types of features were combined (i.e., vegetation indices, HSI color space, and RGB image texture) in pairs or total; 3) The third feature space was composed of the most optimal factors, where the dimension reduction was performed on the combination of all three types of features using RF. Subsequently, the RGB images were classified into three land-use types, including maize, bare land, and shadow. Bayes, KNN, SVM, DT, and RFs models were finally selected for the supervised classification with error matrix. The results showed that the optimal classification accuracy was obtained using neither a single feature nor all three types of features in total. More importantly, a combination of features was usually achieved higher accuracy than that of a single feature. Specifically, the best choice was the combination of HSI color and RGB image texture features using the RF, particularly with the total highest accuracy of 0.862 and a Kappa coefficient of 0.793. Additionally, the dimension reduction of features using RF models was neither significantly improved nor reduced classification accuracy (except for the SVM). However, the factors retained from the feature dimension reduction were easily explained suitable for the actual background and meaning. Furthermore, both classification efficiency and stability were improved greatly during this time. The finding can provide a specific solution for the high-precision extraction of crop planting information using UAV RGB images [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Cotton water status was estimated using vegetation indices and textural information. • Combining vegetation indices with textural information enhanced estimation accuracy. • The XGBoost_VIs + TFs + TIs model performed the best in estimating CWSI. • The estimated CWSI predictive map could diagnose cotton canopy water stress. Precise and timely estimation of crop canopy water status is of great importance for precision irrigation. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based remote sensing technology has become increasingly popular for crop canopy water status estimation. Nevertheless, the capability of vegetation indices (VIs) along with textural information from high-resolution imagery for estimating cotton canopy water status has been rarely explored. The VIs, texture features (TFs), and texture indices (TIs) were obtained from UAV multispectral images of cotton with different irrigation levels and nitrogen rates in the southern Xinjiang of China. The performances of three machine learning models, i.e. support vector machine (SVM), back-propagation neural network (BPNN) and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) were evaluated for estimating canopy equivalent water thickness (CEWT) and crop water stress index (CWSI) throughout the cotton growing season. The results showed that combining vegetation indices and textural information significantly improved the estimation accuracy of models compared to vegetation indices or textural information alone. The XGBoost_VIs + TFs model exhibited the best accuracy in estimating CEWT (R2 = 0.75, RMSE = 0.01 cm, RE = 19.46 % at upper half-canopy level, and R2 = 0.65, RMSE = 0.02 cm, RE = 24.59 % at all-canopy level), while the XGBoost_VIs + TFs + TIs model performed best in predicting CWSI among the models (R2 = 0.90, RMSE = 0.05, RE = 5.84 %). Although CEWT estimation was fair to some extent, CWSI estimation was more applicable for diagnosing cotton water stress. The CWSI maps created from the optimal XGBoost_VIs + TFs + TIs model intuitively reflected the cotton canopy water status under various irrigation levels and nitrogen rates, which could help farmers implement timely and precision irrigation in cotton production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chlorophyll is an important pigment for crop light energy utilization, which directly affects the process of energy material conversion and transmission. The change of chlorophyll content directly reflects the ability of photosynthesis and the nutritional status of crop growth. When the traditional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing was used for crop nutrition monitoring, most of them started from the spectral vegetation indices, ignoring the characteristics of the image itself. In this study, we estimated potato leaf chlorophyll content from a comprehensive index formed by the fusion of multi-spectral vegetation indices, texture features and comprehensive indicators of data fusion. The effect of comprehensive index model on estimating potato leaf chlorophyll content was explored. First, we used the UAV multi-spectral images during the whole potato growth period in 2018 in Xiaotangshan, Changping, and Beijing. The multi-spectral vegetation index, texture characteristics and other variables were first extracted from UVA images, then their correlation relationships with leaf chlorophyll content were analyzed. The optimal image variables were screened out, and the whole subset analysis was based on adjusted determination coefficient and 10-fold cross-validation was used to estimate the leaf chlorophyll content of potato. Finally, the vegetation index and texture features were reconstructed by principal component fusion to establish a new comprehensive index for chlorophyll content estimation. It was found that the leaf chlorophyll content estimation model based on comprehensive index was better than that based on multi-spectral vegetation indices and texture features. The main reason was that the comprehensive index contained both spectral information and image texture information. Multispectral information and model accuracy had also been significantly improved. In the bud period, compared with the vegetation indices based model and the texture feature based model, the determination coefficient (R2) of the comprehensive index model increased 0.104 and 0.136, while the normalized root mean squared error (NRMSE) reduced 1.3% and 1.6%. During the tuber formation period, the determination coefficient of comprehensive index model was increased 0.04.and 0.101, while the NRMSE was decreased 0.5% and 1.2%, compared with the other 2 models. In the tuber growth period, the determination coefficient of comprehensive index model increased 0.075 and 0.111, and the NRMSE decreased 0.9% and 1.3% compared with the vegetation index model and the texture feature model. During the starch accumulation period, the R2 of comprehensive index model increased 0.017 and 0.046, and the NRMSE decreased 0.2% and 0.6%, compared with vegetation index model and texture feature model. In the maturity period, the determination coefficient of comprehensive index model increased 0.092 and 0.057, and the NRMSE decreased 2.4% and 1.5%.Therefore, the effect of comprehensive index estimation model was the best followed by multi-spectral vegetation indices model and the texture feature model was the worst. The starch accumulation period was the best growth period for estimating chlorophyll content by multispectral vegetation index and texture characteristics, while bud period was the best growth period for estimating chlorophyll content by comprehensive index. Estimating potato chlorophyll content based on multi-spectral image from UAV platform can provide a feasible method for potato growth nutrition monitoring. It realizes low-cost, fast and high-throughput monitoring of potato growth and nutrition information, as well as provides guarantee for fine management of farmland irrigation, variable fertilization and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) low-altitude remote sensing technology has recently been adopted in China. However, mapping accuracy and production processes of true digital orthophoto maps (TDOMs) generated by UAV images require further improvement. In this study, ground control points were distributed and images were collected using a multi-rotor UAV and professional camera, at a flight height of 160 m above the ground and a designed ground sample distance (GSD) of 0.016 m. A structure from motion (SfM), revised digital surface model (DSM) and multi-view image texture compensation workflow were outlined to generate a high-precision TDOM. We then used randomly distributed checkpoints on the TDOM to verify its precision. The horizontal accuracy of the generated TDOM was 0.0365 m, the vertical accuracy was 0.0323 m, and the GSD was 0.0166 m. Tilt and shadowed areas of the TDOM were eliminated so that buildings maintained vertical viewing angles. This workflow produced a TDOM accuracy within 0.05 m, and provided an effective method for identifying rural homesteads, as well as land planning and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]