Authors: Sylvain Jay, Frédéric Baret, Dan Dutartre, Ghislain Malatesta, Stéphanie Héno, Alexis Comar, Marie Weiss, Fabienne Maupas
The recent emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) has opened a new horizon in vegetation remote sensing, especially for agricultural applications. However, the benefits of UAV centimeter-scale imagery are still unclear compared to coarser resolution data acquired from satellites or aircrafts. This study aims (i) to propose novel methods for retrieving canopy variables from UAV multispectral observations, and (ii) to investigate to what extent the use of such centimeter-scale imagery makes it possible to improve the estimation of leaf and canopy variables in sugar beet crops (Beta vulgaris L.). Five important structural and biochemical plant traits are considered: green fraction (GF), green area index (GAI), leaf chlorophyll content (Cab), as well as canopy chlorophyll (CCC) and nitrogen (CNC) contents.
Based on a comprehensive data set encompassing a large variability in canopy structure and biochemistry …
