Nondestructive Methods to Estimate Leaf Area in Vitis vinifera L.

The importance of rapid, nondestructive, and accurate measurements of leaf area (LA) in agronomic and physiological studies is well known, but a search of the literature revealed little information available for grape ( Vitis vinifera L.). The results described herein include a comparison of 12 different mathematical models for estimating leaf area in `Cencibel'. The simplest, most accurate regression equations were: LA i = 0.587 LW ( R 2 = 0.987) and LA i = 0.588 LW ( R 2 = 0.994), where LA i is leaf area measured using image analysis and LW is leaf length × maximum width. Use of maximum width (W), leaf length (L), petiole length (L p ), and dry weight of leaves (DML) as single variables in the regression equations were not as closely associated with total leaf area, although their R 2 values were also highly significant.