A simplified approach to satellite-based monitoring system of sugarcane plantation to manage yield decline at Wonji-Shoa Sugar Estate, central Ethiopia

Drastic and continuous decline in cane yields has become a major threat to sustainable sugarcane production in Ethiopia. Among the causes for the decline are the inefficient and ineffective system of monitoring sugarcane plantations. Adopting satellite-based crop monitoring through the Landviewer platform may circumvent this problem. However, the reliability of vegetation indexes calculated by the platform is unknown and thus requires evaluation. Accordingly, we tested the accuracy of selected Landviewer Calculated Vegetation Indexes (LCVIs) on three major sugarcane varieties and two cropping types. The goodness-of-fit of the sigmoid curve to the LCVIs profile of sugarcane was evaluated. The correlations between LCVIs and yield components, LCVIs and fractional green canopy cover (FGCC), as well as the time-serious Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and yields, were also analysed. We found that the goodness-of-fit of the sigmoid curve was significant (p