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Background: Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) is an important parameter for evaluating crop-growth status. Optical remote-sensing techniques combined with the pixel dichotomy model (PDM) are widely used to estimate cropland FVC with medium to high spatial resolution on the ground. However, PDM-based FVC estimation is limited by effects stemming from the variation of crop canopy chlorophyll content (CCC). To overcome this difficulty, we propose herein a "fan-shaped method" (FSM) that uses a CCC spectral index (SI) and a vegetation SI to create a two-dimensional scatter map in which the three vertices represent high-CCC vegetation, low-CCC vegetation, and bare soil. The FVC at each pixel is determined based on the spatial location of the pixel in the two-dimensional scatter map, which mitigates the effects of CCC on the PDM. To evaluate the accuracy of FSM estimates of the FVC, we analyze the spectra obtained from (a) the PROSAIL model and (b) a spectrometer mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle platform. Specifically, we use both the proposed FSM and traditional remote-sensing FVC-estimation methods (both linear and nonlinear regression and PDM) to estimate soybean FVC. Results: Field soybean CCC measurements indicate that (a) the soybean CCC increases continuously from the flowering growth stage to the later-podding growth stage, and then decreases with increasing crop growth stages, (b) the coefficient of variation of soybean CCC is very large in later growth stages (31.58–35.77%) and over all growth stages (26.14%). FVC samples with low CCC are underestimated by the PDM. Linear and nonlinear regression underestimates (overestimates) FVC samples with low (high) CCC. The proposed FSM depends less on CCC and is thus a robust method that can be used for multi-stage FVC estimation of crops with strongly varying CCC. Conclusions: Estimates and maps of FVC based on the later growth stages and on multiple growth stages should consider the variation of crop CCC. FSM can mitigates the effect of CCC by conducting a PDM at each CCC level. The FSM is a robust method that can be used to estimate FVC based on multiple growth stages where crop CCC varies greatly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Timely and accurate estimates of canopy chlorophyll (Chl) a and b content are crucial for crop growth monitoring and agricultural management. Crop canopy reflectance depends on many factors, which can be divided into the following categories: (i) leaf effects (e.g., leaf pigments), (ii) canopy effects (e.g., Leaf Area Index [LAI]), and (iii) soil background reflectance (e.g., soil reflectance). The estimation of leaf variables, such as Chl contents, from reflectance at the canopy scale is usually less accurate than that at the leaf scale. In this study, we propose a Visible and Near-infrared (NIR) Angle Index (VNAI) to estimate the Chl content of soybean canopy, and soybean canopy Chl maps are produced using visible and NIR unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing images. The VNAI is insensitive to LAI and can be used for the multi-stage estimation of crop canopy Chl content. Results: Eleven previously used vegetation indices (VIs) (e.g., Pigment-specific Normalized Difference Index) were selected for performance comparison. The results showed that (i) most previously used Chl VIs were significantly correlated with LAI, and the proposed VNAI was more sensitive to Chl content than LAI; (ii) the VNAI-based estimates of Chl content were more accurate than those based on the other investigated VIs using (1) simulated, (2) real (field), and (3) real (UAV) datasets. Conclusions: Most previously used Chl VIs were significantly correlated with LAI whereas the proposed VNAI was more sensitive to Chl content than to LAI, indicating that the VNAI may be more strongly correlated with Chl content than these previously used VIs. Multi-stage estimations of the Chl content of cropland obtained using the VNAI and broadband remote sensing images may help to obtain Chl maps with high temporal and spatial resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]