Non-destructive estimation of winter wheat leaf moisture content using near-ground hyperspectral imaging technology

Accurate monitoring of crop moisture content is very important for irrigation scheduling and yield increase. This study aims to construct an optimal estimation model of winter wheat leaf moisture content (LMC) through spectral data processing and feature band selection. LMC and spectral reflectance were measured in 2017-2018 to construct models using simple linear regression (SLR), principal components regression (PCR), and partial least square regression (PLSR); feature bands for modelling were selected through correlation analysis and the effects of feature band number on estimation accuracy were compared. The results showed that data transformation significantly enhanced the correlation between spectral features and LMC. However, the band position corresponding to the maximum correlation coefficient for each transformation was not fixed. The accuracy of PLSR models were significantly higher than that of PCR and SLR models. The comparison of relative percent deviation (RPD) values indicated that the RPD values increased rapidly and then tended to be stable with the increase of feature band number. The R′′ -PLSR model constructed with 28 feature bands (R2c = 0.8517; RPD > 2.0) estimated the LMC more accurately than other models. This study provides a good method for non-destructive monitoring of crop moisture content.