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ABSTRACT
This study investigated the utility of Sentinel-2 spectral data for estimating leaf area index (LAI), leaf and canopy chlorophyll content of maize at different growth stages. Vegetation indices based on the visible-near infrared and red-edge regions of the spectrum were computed from Sentinel-2 imagery acquired within one or two days of field data collection. Results showed that green chlorophyll index (CIgreen) and red-edge chlorophyll index (CIred-edge), using the red-edge variant centred at 705 nm, consistently showed higher relationship to maize LAI with r2 of 0.65 and 0.63 during the early stages of growth, respectively, and an r2 of 0.79 and 0.81 during tassel stage, respectively. Regarding canopy chlorophyll content the results indicated the spectral advantage of the Sentinel-2 sensor with the presence of two red-edge bands for continuous monitoring of maize chlorophyll content. Overall, the results indicated that maize biophysical variables can be monitored at satellite level using Sentinel-2 data.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express gratitude to the CSIR for providing a PG Discretionary grant and Young Researcher Empowerment Fund. The authors are also thankful to Re ya lema and LTZ Heritage Investment (Pty) Ltd for the access to collect field data from their farms. We also thank the reviewers for their review suggestions that improved the content of this manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.