Nitrogen is one of the most important macronutrients and plays an essential role in the growth and development of winter wheat. It is very crucial to diagnose the nitrogen status timely and accurately for applying a precision nitrogen management (PNM) strategy to the guidance of nitrogen fertilizer in the field. The main purpose of this study was to use three different prediction methods to evaluate winter wheat plant nitrogen concentration (PNC) at booting, heading, flowering, filling, and the whole growth stage in the Guanzhong area from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hyperspectral imagery. These methods include (1) the parametric regression method; (2) linear nonparametric regression methods (stepwise multiple linear regression (SMLR) and partial least squares regression (PLSR)); and (3) machine learning methods (random forest regression (RFR), support vector machine regression (SVMR), and extreme learning machine regression (ELMR)). The purpose of this study was also to pay attention to the impact of different growth stages on the accuracy of the model. The results showed that compared with parametric regression and linear nonparametric regression, the machine learning regression method could evidently improve the estimation accuracy of winter wheat PNC, especially using SVMR and RFR, the training set of the model at flowering and filling stage explained 93% and 92% of the PNC variability respectively. The testing set of the model at flowering and filling stages explained 88% and 91% of the PNC variability, the root mean square error of the validation set (RMSE_testing) was 0.82 and 1.23, and the relative prediction deviation (RPD) was 2.58 and 2.40, respectively. Therefore, a conclusion was drawn that it was the best choice to estimate winter wheat PNC at the flowering and filling stage from UAV hyperspectral imagery. Using machine learning methods, SVMR and RFR, respectively, could achieve the most outstanding estimation performance, which could provide a theoretical basis for putting forward the PNM strategy.

Nitrogen balance index (NBI) is an important indicator for scientific diagnostic and quantitative research on crop growth status. The quick and accurate assessment of NBI is necessary for farmers to make timely N management decisions. The objective of the study was to estimate winter wheat NBI based on canopy hyperspectral features between 400–1350 nm combined with machine learning (ML) methods in the individual and whole growth stages. In this study, 3 years of winter wheat plot experiments were conducted. Ground-level canopy hyperspectral reflectance and corresponding plant NBI values were measured during the jointing, booting, flowering and filling stages. Continuous removal spectra (CRS) and logarithmic transformation spectra (LOGS) were derived from the original canopy spectra. Sensitive bands and vegetation indices (VIs) highly correlated with NBI under different spectral transformations were selected as hyperspectral features to construct the NBI estimation models combined with ML algorithms. The study indicated that the spectral transformation significantly improved the correlation between the sensitive bands, VIs and the NBI. The correlation coefficient of the sensitive band in CRS in the booting stage increased by 27.87%, reaching −0.78. The leaf chlorophyll index (LCI) in LOGS had the highest correlation with NBI in the filling stage, reaching a correlation coefficient of −0.96. The NBI prediction accuracies based on the sensitive band combined with VIs were generally better than those based on the univariate hyperspectral feature, and the prediction accuracy of each growth stage was better than that of the whole growth stage. The random forest regression (RFR) method performed better than the support vector regression (SVR) and partial least squares regression (PLS) methods. The NBI estimation model based on the LOGS-RFR method in the filling stage could explain 95% of the NBI variability with relative prediction deviation (RPD) being 3.69. These results will provide a scientific basis for better nitrogen nutrition monitoring, diagnosis, and later for field management of winter wheat.

Crop growth and yield monitoring are essential for food security and agricultural economic return prediction. Remote sensing is an efficient technique for measuring growing season crop canopies and providing information on the spatial variability of crop yields. In this study, ten vegetation indices (VIs) derived from time series PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 images were used to investigate the potential to estimate corn grain yield with different regression methods. A field-scale spatial crop yield prediction model was developed and used to produce yield maps depicting spatial variability in the field. Results from this study clearly showed that high-resolution PlanetScope satellite data could be used to detect the corn yield variability at field level, which could explain 15% more variability than Sentinel-2A data at the same spatial resolution of 10 m. Comparison of the model performance and variable importance measure between models illustrated satisfactory results for assessing corn productivity with VIs. The green chlorophyll vegetation index (GCVI) values consistently produced the highest correlations with corn yield, accounting for 72% of the observed spatial variation in corn yield. More reliable quantitative yield estimation could be made using a multi-linear stepwise regression (MSR) method with multiple VIs. Good agreement between observed and predicted yield was achieved with the coefficient of determination value being 0.81 at 86 days after seeding. The results would help farmers and decision-makers generate predicted yield maps, identify crop yield variability, and make further crop management practices timely.

Chlorophyll is an important indicator for monitoring crop growth and is vital for agricultural management. Therefore, rapid and accurate estimation of chlorophyll content is important for decision support in precision agriculture to accurately monitor the SPAD (Soil and Plant Analyzer Development) values of winter wheat. This study used winter wheat to obtain canopy reflectance based on UAV hyperspectral data and to calculate different vegetation indices and red-edge parameters. The best-performing vegetation indices and red-edge parameters were selected by Pearson correlation analysis and multiple stepwise regression (MSR). SPAD values were estimated using a combination of vegetation indices, vegetation indices and red-edge parameters as model factors, two types of machine learning (ML), a support vector machine (SVM), and a backward propagation neural network (BPNN), and partial least squares regression (PLSR) for four growth stages of winter wheat, and validated using independent samples. The results show that for the same data source, the best vegetation indices or red-edge parameters for estimating SPAD values differed at different growth stages and that combining vegetation indices with red-edge parameters gave better estimates than using only vegetation indices as an input factor for estimating SPAD values. There is no significant difference between PLSR, SVM, and BPNN methods in estimating SPAD values, with better stability of the estimated models using machine learning methods. Different growth stages have a large impact on winter wheat SPAD values estimates, with the accuracy of the four growth stage models increasing in the following order: booting < heading < filling < flowering. This study shows that using a combination of vegetation indices and red-edge parameters can improve SPAD values estimates compared to using vegetation indices alone. In the future, the choice of appropriate factors and methods will need to be considered when constructing models to estimate crop SPAD values.

Canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) is closely related to crop nitrogen status, crop growth and productivity, detection of diseases and pests, and final yield. Thus, accurate monitoring of chlorophyll content in crops is of great significance for decision support in precision agriculture. In this study, winter wheat in the Guanzhong Plain area of the Shaanxi Province, China, was selected as the research subject to explore the feasibility of canopy spectral transformation (CST) combined with a machine learning method to estimate CCC. A hyperspectral canopy ground dataset in situ was measured to construct CCC prediction models for winter wheat over three growth seasons from 2014 to 2017. Sensitive-band reflectance (SR) and narrow-band spectral index (NSI) were established based on the original spectrum (OS) and CSTs, including the first derivative spectrum (FDS) and continuum removal spectrum (CRS). Winter wheat CCC estimation models were constructed using univariate regression, partial least squares (PLS) regression, and random forest (RF) regression based on SR and NSI. The results demonstrated the reliability of CST combined with the machine learning method to estimate winter wheat CCC. First, compared with OS-SR (683 nm), FDS-SR (630 nm) and CRS-SR (699 nm) had a larger correlation coefficient between canopy reflectance and CCC; secondly, among the parametric regression methods, the univariate regression method with CRS-NDSI as the independent variable achieved satisfactory results in estimating the CCC of winter wheat; thirdly, as a machine learning regression method, RF regression combined with multiple independent variables had the best winter wheat CCC estimation accuracy (the determination coefficient of the validation set (R_v²) was 0.88, the RMSE of the validation set (RMSE_v) was 3.35 and relative prediction deviation (RPD) was 2.88). Thus, this modeling method could be used as a basic method to predict the CCC of winter wheat in the Guanzhong Plain area.

Plant nitrogen concentration (PNC) is a traditional standard index to measure the nitrogen nutritional status of winter wheat. Rapid and accurate diagnosis of PNC performs an important role in mastering the growth status of winter wheat and guiding field precision fertilization. In this study, the in situ hyperspectral reflectance data were measured by handheld SVC HR−1024I (SVC) passive field spectroradiometer and PNC were determined by the modified Kjeldahl digestion method. Continuous wavelet transform (CWT), successive projection algorithm (SPA) and partial least square (PLS) regression were combined to construct an efficient method for estimating winter wheat PNC. The main objectives of this study were to (1) use CWT to extract various wavelet coefficients under different decomposition scales, (2) use SPA to screen sensitive wavelet coefficients as independent variables and combine with PLS regression to establish winter wheat PNC estimation models, respectively, and (3) compare the precision of PLS regression models to find a reliable model for estimating winter wheat PNC during the growing season. The results of this paper showed that properly increasing the decomposition scale of CWT could weaken the impact of high-frequency noise on the prediction model. The number of wavelet coefficients has been significantly reduced after screened by SPA. The PNC estimation model (CWT–Scale6–SPA–PLS) based on the wavelet coefficients of the sixth decomposition scale most accurately predicted the PNC (the determination coefficient of the calibration set (R_c²) was 0.85. Root mean square error of the calibration set (RMSE_c) was 0.27. The determination coefficient of the validation set (R_v²) was 0.84. Root mean square error of the validation set (RMSE_v) was 0.28 and relative prediction deviation (RPD) was 2.47). CWT-Scale6-SPA-PLS can be used to predict PNC. The optimal winter wheat PNC prediction model based on CWT proposed in this study is a reliable method for rapid and nondestructive monitoring of PNC and provides a new technical method for precision nitrogen management.