Unique Contributions of Chlorophyll and Nitrogen to Predict Crop Photosynthetic Capacity from Leaf Spectroscopy

Themes: Feedstock Production, Sustainability

Keywords: Biomass Analytics, Modeling

Citation

Wang, S., Guan, K., Wang, Z., Ainsworth, E.A., Zheng, T., Townsend, P.A., Li, K., Moller, C., Wu, G.B., Jiang, C. Sept. 16, 2020. “Unique Contributions of Chlorophyll and Nitrogen to Predict Crop Photosynthetic Capacity from Leaf Spectroscopy.” Journal of Experimental Botany eraa432. DOI: 10.1093/jxb/eraa432.

Overview

(a) Taylor diagram for evaluating spectroscopic methods. Points that appear closer to the observation point (red) indicate higher model predictive ability. (b) Variable Importance in Projection (VIP) scores for spectral contributions of trait predictions. Vmax is close to Chl in 500-1500 nm but similar to Nmass in 1500-2400 nm.

The photosynthetic capacity or the CO2-saturated photosynthetic rate (Vmax), chlorophyll, and nitrogen are closely linked leaf traits that determine C4 crop photosynthesis and yield. Accurate, timely, rapid, and non-destructive approaches to predict leaf photosynthetic traits from hyperspectral reflectance are urgently needed for high-throughput crop monitoring to ensure food and bioenergy security. Therefore, this study thoroughly evaluated the state-of-the-art physically based radiative transfer models (RTMs), data-driven partial least squares regression (PLSR), and generalized PLSR (gPLSR) models to estimate leaf traits from leaf-clip hyperspectral reflectance, which was collected from maize (Zea mays L.) bioenergy plots with diverse genotypes, growth stages, treatments with nitrogen fertilizers, and ozone stresses in three growing seasons. The results show that leaf RTMs considering bidirectional effects can give accurate estimates of chlorophyll content (Pearson correlation r=0.95), while gPLSR enabled retrieval of leaf nitrogen concentration (r=0.85). Using PLSR with field measurements for training, the cross-validation indicates that Vmax can be well predicted from spectra (r=0.81). The integration of chlorophyll content (strongly related to visible spectra) and nitrogen concentration (linked to shortwave infrared signals) can provide better predictions of Vmax (r=0.71) than only using either chlorophyll or nitrogen individually. This study highlights that leaf chlorophyll content and nitrogen concentration have key and unique contributions to Vmax prediction.

Data

Download (43.8 MB) includes:

  • Measured leaf traits
  • Measured reflectance
  • Generated spectra-trait PLSR models

Related Publications