Search Results (3)

The generally established protocol for leaf measurement with proximal optical sensors is to use the most recently fully expanded leaf. However, differences in the nitrogen (N) status of lower and upper leaves could possibly be used to enhance optical sensor measurement. Normalized indices that consider both upper and lower leaves have been proposed to improve the assessment of crop N status and yield estimation. This study evaluated whether normalized indices improved the estimation of crop yield from measurements with three different proximal optical sensors: (i) SPAD-502 leaf chlorophyll meter, (ii) Crop Circle ACS 470 canopy reflectance sensor, and (iii) Multiplex fluorescence meter. The study was conducted with sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) and muskmelon (Cucumis melo L.) in plastic greenhouses in Almeria, Spain. Measurements were made on the latest (most recent) leaf (L1), and the second (L2), third (L3) and fourth (L4) fully expanded leaves. Yield estimation models, using linear regression analysis, were developed and validated from the absolute and normalized measurements of the three optical sensors. Overall, the calibration and validation results indicated that the absolute measurements generally had better yield estimation performance than the normalized indices for all the leaves and different leaf profiles. In both species, there was a better performance at the early phenological stages, such as the vegetative and flowering stages, for the absolute and normalized indices for the three optical sensors. Absolute proximal optical sensor measurements on the lower leaves (L2, L3 and L4) slightly improved yield estimation compared to the L1 leaf. Normalized indices that included the L4 leaf (L1–L4) had better yield estimation compared to those using L2 and L3 (e.g., L1–L2 and L1–L3). Of the normalized indices evaluated, the yield performance of the Relative Index (RI), Relative Difference Index (RDI), and Normalized Difference Index (NDI) were very similar, and generally superior to the Difference Index (DI). Overall, the results of this study demonstrated that for three different proximal optical sensors in both muskmelon and sweet pepper (i) normalized indices did not improve yield estimation, and (ii) that absolute measurements on lower leaves (L2, L3 and L4) slightly improved yield estimation performance. Full article

In order to select the light quality suitable for plant growth, a quantitative detection model of chlorophyll content in muskmelon leaves was established to monitor plant growth quickly and accurately. In the paper, muskmelon “Boyang 91” was used as the experimental material, and six different light proportion treatments were set up. Through measuring plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, nodes, and other growth indicators, in addition to leaf chlorophyll content, the response difference of muskmelon to different light qualities was explored in a plant factory. The hyperspectral imaging technology was used to establish the prediction model for the chlorophyll content of muskmelon. The original spectrum was preprocessed and optimized by five pretreatments, and then the characteristic wavelengths were extracted by six methods. Partial least squares regression (PLSR), least squares support vector machine (LSSVM), and convolutional neural network (CNN) were established for optimal feature wavelength. The results showed that the plant height and stem diameter of the T3 treatment were higher than those of other treatments, and their values were 14.48 (cm) and 5.02 (mm), respectively. The chlorophyll content of the T3 treatment was the highest, and its value was 40.16 (mg/g), which was higher than that of other treatments. Through comprehensive analysis, the T3 treatment (light ratio: 6R/1B/2W, light quantum flux: 360 μmol/(m²·s), photoperiod: 12 h) was optimal. Meanwhile, the average spectral reflectance data of 216 leaf samples were extracted, and the S-G preprocessing method was selected to preprocess the original spectral data (Rc = 0.860, RMSEC = 1.806; Rcv = 0.790, RMSECV = 2.161). By comparing and analyzing the correlation coefficients and root mean square errors of six feature wavelength extraction methods, it was concluded that the variable combination population analysis (VCPA) method had the best model effect for feature wavelength extraction (R_P = 0.824, RMSEP = 1.973). Ten characteristic wavelengths ( 396, 409, 457, 518, 532, 565, 687, 691, 701, and 705 nm) extracted by the VCPA method were used to establish the chlorophyll content prediction model, and the chlorophyll content prediction model of S-G-VCPA-CNN had the best performance (Rc = 0.9151, RMSEC = 1.445; Rp = 0.811, RMSEP = 2.055). The results of this study provide data support and a theoretical basis for screening the light ratio of other crops, and also present technical support for online monitoring of crop growth in plant factories. Full article

In precision agriculture, the nitrogen level is significantly important for establishing phenotype, quality and yield of crops. It cannot be achieved in the future without appropriate nitrogen fertilizer application. Moreover, a convenient and real-time advance technology for nitrogen nutrition diagnosis of crops is a prerequisite for an efficient and reasonable nitrogen-fertilizer management system. With the development of research on plant phenotype and artificial intelligence technology in agriculture, deep learning has demonstrated a great potential in agriculture for recognizing nondestructive nitrogen nutrition diagnosis in plants by automation and high throughput at a low cost. To build a nitrogen nutrient-diagnosis model, muskmelons were cultivated under different nitrogen levels in a greenhouse. The digital images of canopy leaves and the environmental factors (light and temperature) during the growth period of muskmelons were tracked and analyzed. The nitrogen concentrations of the plants were measured, we successfully constructed and trained machine-learning- and deep-learning models based on the traditional backpropagation neural network (BPNN), the emerging convolution neural network (CNN), the deep convolution neural network (DCNN) and the long short-term memory (LSTM) for the nitrogen nutrition diagnosis of muskmelon. The adjusted determination coefficient (R²) and mean square error (MSE) between the predicted values and measured values of nitrogen concentration were adopted to evaluate the models’ accuracy. The values were R² = 0.567 and MSE = 0.429 for BPNN model; R² = 0.376 and MSE = 0.628 for CNN model; R² = 0.686 and MSE = 0.355 for deep convolution neural network (DCNN) model; and R² = 0.904 and MSE = 0.123 for the hybrid model DCNN–LSTM. Therefore, DCNN–LSTM shows the highest accuracy in predicting the nitrogen content of muskmelon. Our findings highlight a base for achieving a convenient, precise and intelligent diagnosis of nitrogen nutrition in muskmelon. Full article