See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/340741974

Passive reflectance sensing using optimized two-and three-band spectral

indices for quantifying the total nitrogen yield of maize

Article  in  Computers and Electronics in Agriculture · April 2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.compag.2020.105403

CITATIONS READS
0 97

5 authors, including:

Hasi Tuya Fei Li

Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Inner Mongolia Agricultural University
13 PUBLICATIONS   94 CITATIONS    40 PUBLICATIONS   1,320 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Salah Elsayed Yuncai Hu

University of Sadat City Technische Universität München
47 PUBLICATIONS   273 CITATIONS    91 PUBLICATIONS   3,233 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Nitrogen plant nutrition View project

Project "Soil borne causes for the occurrence of Rhizoctonia crown and root rot in sugar beet" ("Bodenbedingte Ursachen für das Auftreten der Rhizoctonia
Rübenfäule") View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Salah Elsayed on 14 December 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340741974

Passive reflectance sensing using optimized two-and three-band spectral

indices for quantifying the total nitrogen yield of maize

Article  in  Computers and Electronics in Agriculture · April 2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.compag.2020.105403

CITATIONS READS

0 78

5 authors, including:

Hasi Tuya Fei Li

Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Inner Mongolia Agricultural University
13 PUBLICATIONS   92 CITATIONS    40 PUBLICATIONS   1,313 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Salah Elsayed Yuncai Hu

University of Sadat City Technische Universität München
46 PUBLICATIONS   267 CITATIONS    90 PUBLICATIONS   3,200 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Book: Evapotranspiration-From Measurements to Agricultural and Environmental Applications View project

Nitrogen and environment View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Yuncai Hu on 02 October 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compag

Passive reflectance sensing using optimized two- and three-band spectral T

indices for quantifying the total nitrogen yield of maize
⁎
Hasituyaa,b, Fei Lia,b, , Salah Elsayeda,c, Yuncai Hud, Urs Schmidhalterd
a
College of Grassland, Resources and Environment, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Hohhot, Inner Mongolia 010011, China
b
Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Soil Quality and Nutrient Resources, Hohhot, China
c
Evaluation of Natural Resources Department, Environmental Studies and Research Institute, University of Sadat City, Egypt
d
Chair of Plant Nutrition, Department of Plant Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Emil-Ramann-Str. 2, D-85354 Freising, Germany

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Precision nitrogen (N) management requires accurate and effective quantification of the total nitrogen yield
Total nitrogen yield (TNY) crops. Thus, this study aimed at establishing the robust prediction model to quantify the TNY of maize
Hyperspectral remote sensing plants across growth stages, cultivars and years through optimizing two-band spectral indices, i.e. the normal-
Spectral index ized difference spectral index (NDSI) and the ratio spectral index (RSI), and three-band spectral indices, i.e. the
Maize
canopy chlorophyll content index (CCCI) by re-determining the central wavelength and bandwidth. Field ex-
periments with three maize cultivars and five N treatments were carried out in the North China Plain during
2011, 2012, and 2013. The results showed that the optimized band ranges of NDSI and RSI were mainly located
within 720–760 nm (the red-edge domain) and 750–900 nm (the near-infrared domain). The central wave-
lengths of the NDSI were 768 and 740 nm, whereas those of the RSI were 756 and 744 nm. The most suitable
band domains of the CCCI were 720–760, 500–600 and 740–800 nm, and their central wavelengths were 766,
738 and 548 nm. Our study found that the optimized spectral indices could predict the TNY of maize accurately
and robustly compared with existing spectral indices. The relationships between the optimized NDSI and RSI and
maize TNY reached a high coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.83). However, the prediction accuracy of TNY
using the NDSI and RSI was gradually decreased with an increase in bandwidth, i.e., the bandwidths with central
wavelengths of 740 and 768 nm of the NDSI were 13 and 21 nm, respectively. For RSI, the bandwidths with
central wavelengths of 744 and 756 nm were 29 and 17 nm, respectively. The results also demonstrated that an
optimized narrow and broadband CCCI was significantly linear in relation to the TNY of maize (R2 = 0.85),
suggesting an optimized CCCI may be used to quantify TNY of maize plants with higher accuracy by avoiding the
saturation effect and improving sensitivity.

1. Introduction et al., 2019). Spectral sensing technologies allows us to estimate crop

Crop total nitrogen yield (TNY) is an essential indicator for diag-
nosing nutrient status and estimating crop yield (Cao et al., 2017;
Elsayed et al., 2018; Pinkalski et al., 2018). Because TNY indicates unit
area nitrogen (N) accumulation that is related to canopy photosynthetic
capacity and chlorophyll content (Ollinger et al., 2008; Stroppiana
et al., 2009) and depends on cultivars and growth stages (Li et al.,
2014a), the technologies applied to quantify nitrogen must be accurate
and robust (Ju & Christie, 2011; Frels et al., 2018). Furthermore, the
conventional plant- or soil-based point sampling approaches to evaluate
crop N by Kjeldahl methods or a nitrate tester are time-consuming,
expensive and laborious, and thus, it is very difficult to make decisions
in the real-time management of N fertilizer (Baresel et al., 2017; Loozen
TNY on a field scale, a local scale, and even a regional scale because of
the spectral reflectance and absorption characteristics with regard to
the specific physical and chemical properties of crops (Freeman et al.,
2007; Kipp et al., 2014).
Recently, many studies have shown that the spectral index-based
approaches have been widely used as expedient tools for rapidly and
non-destructively estimating the TNY of different crops (wheat, maize
and rice) on a field scale (Erdle et al., 2011; Winterhalter et al., 2011; Li
et al., 2013; Yu et al., 2013). However, it is difficult to establish a robust
prediction model for the TNY of crops with spectral indices, since hy-
perspectral data varies with the field conditions, plant growth stages
and cultivars, and data processing procedures (El-Hendawy et al.,
2017). Furthermore, a large number of narrow wavebands provided by

⁎
Corresponding author at: College of Grassland, Resources and Environment, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University Hohhot, Inner Mongolia 010011, China.
E-mail address: lifei@imau.edu.cn (F. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2020.105403
Received 15 March 2019; Received in revised form 23 February 2020; Accepted 1 April 2020
0168-1699/ © 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Hasituya, et al.
hyperspectral remote sensing data may include irrelevant or redundant
information such that the most effective bands are hidden. Therefore, it
is necessary to develop the most effective approaches to identifying the
N-related sensitive bands for the spectral indices from huge hyper-
spectral data.
The current spectral indices for estimating TNY can be generally
classified into three types: (1) the normalized difference-based index,
e.g., NDSI; (2) the ratio-based index, e.g., RSI; and (3) NDSI- and RSI-
based combined index, e.g., canopy chlorophyll content index (CCCI).
However, the application of the red light based NDSI (RNDSI) is hin-
dered by the saturation issue, which is due to the higher canopy cov-
erage and/or aboveground biomass at moderate or high N levels (Li
et al., 2014a,b). Hatfield et al. (2008) and Magney et al. (2017) dis-
covered that the red-edge band, a transition domain of the red band to
the NIR band, is more effective for estimating the TNY of maize and
wheat. Kanke et al. (2012) compared the red-edge band indices with
the RNDSI in estimating TNY, and found that, although the sensitivity
of RNDSI decreases with the increase in N rate, it provides better dif-
ferences in plant growth at early growth stages with the same N rate,
whereas the sensitivity of the red-edge band increases with the N rate
and growth stages. That the normalized difference red-edge index
(NDRE) is a stable and effective indicator for the TNY. Based on RNDSI
and NDRE, Fitzgerald et al. (2010) developed the index CCCI that en-
ables to better estimate TNY of wheat by reducing the effect of the
increase in canopy coverage.
The sensitivity of spectral indices for estimating TNY decreased with
the increase in biomass and the progression of growth stages, and was
ultimately lost in the late growth stage as TNY reached the maximum.
The centre bands and bandwidth of the best performing indices for
quantifying the TNY of crops varies with cultivars and growth stages.
Therefore, the phenology of plants plays a key role in developing the
relationship of the TNY with spectral indices. Furthermore, the TNY is
related to both above-ground biomass (AGB) and plant N concentration
(PNC), which have a great influence on performance of spectral indices
in detecting crop TNY. Thus, the central wavelength position and
bandwidth of spectral indices (NDSI, RSI and CCCI) should be opti-
mized to establish the robust algorithms for accurate and effective TNY
estimation across cultivars and growth stages.
Maize is a major crop in China, and plays a crucial role in ensuring
food security amid the rapid increase in Chinese population. The
planting area of maize in China has increased by 38.1% from 2001 to
2010, and the Northern China Plain is one of the most important places
for maize production (Li et al., 2014a). However, there is still no study
available on estimating maize TNY using spectral remote sensing; in
particular, it is still unclear how the cultivars and growth stages influ-
ence TNY estimation by spectral sensing approaches. Considering that
no N fertilizer is required in the tasselling growth stage, our experi-
ments are mainly focused on the key vegetative growth stages of maize
requiring higher amount of N supply, i.e. the V6-V7 growth stage (Sixth
to seventh leaf) and the V10-V12 growth stage (Tenth to twelfth leaf).
The objectives were to: (1) optimize two- and three-band spectral
indices and determining the most sensitive central wavelength and
bandwidth for estimating the TNY of maize; (2) develop models of the
relationship between optimized spectral indices and the TNY of maize;
and (3) explain how growth stages and cultivars influence the perfor-
mance of spectral indices. This study is expected to improve the ro-
bustness and stability of maize TNY estimation and to actualize the
precise management of N fertilizers.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Field experiments
To quantify the TNY of maize, experiments were conducted for
three consecutive years (from 2011 to 2013) in Quzhou, Hebei pro-
vince, China. The study area is located in the Northern China Plain
2
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403
(115° 0′ 36″ E, 36° 52′ 12″ N) and characterized by a warm temperate
climate. The annual mean temperature and yearly mean precipitation
are 13.1 ℃ and 537 mm, respectively.
Three maize hybrids, i.e. Zhengdan 958, Yedan 13 and Xianyu 335,
and five N treatments, i.e. (1) fertilization with a conventional N rate,
(2) a control (without N application), (3) fertilization with an optimum
N rate (Opt), (4) fertilization with 50% of the Opt N rate and (5) fer-
tilization with 150% of Opt N rate, were considered in this study. The
optimized N level was determined according to soil tests and plant
analysis via Kjeldahl-N determination. The optimum N rate in 2011,
2013 and 2013 was 145, 130 and 165 kg N ha−1, respectively. The
conventional N rate was 103 kg N ha−1 before sowing and top-dressing
266 kg N ha−1 in the V7 growth stage according to local farmerś
practices. The field experiments were conducted in a randomized
complete block split-plot design with 4 replications for each plot (ex-
perimental unit) of 15 × 20 m. The N treatments were assigned as main
plots, and the sub-plots were designed for the random distribution of
three maize cultivars.
Representative experimental units in different farmerś fields with
different N levels and cultivars were selected to validate the perfor-
mance of the spectral indices (NDSI, RSI, and CCCI) for quantifying the
TNY of maize. A total of 54 plant samples (16 in 2012 and 38 in 2013)
were taken randomly at V6-V7 and V10-V12 and immediately after the
spectral measurements were carried out. In order to ensure accurate
representation, the farmerś fields were entirely managed by the
farmers.
The spectral reflectance of maize at the canopy scale at V6-V7 and
V10-V12 was measured by a passive reflectance sensor with spectra
ranging from 350 to 1150 nm and 2 nm sampling spectral intervals
(tec5, Oberursel, Germany). Spectral reflectance was taken under sunny
sky conditions at mid-day (Mistele & Schmidhalter, 2010). The spec-
trometer was used at a 25° field of view (FOV) and from a height of
0.5 m just above the canopy. The spectral reflectance of maize canopy
was corrected with a calibration factor obtained from a reference white
standard. Immediately after the spectral sensor operation, plant sam-
ples were collected from 3 rows in 2 m length in the centre of the ex-
perimental units or the farmerś fields to perform plant N analysis.
Above-ground biomass (AGB) was dried in an oven at 70 °C for 48 h and
periodically weighed until dry matter weights were constant. Plant dry
matter weight was then determined. Dried plant samples from each plot
(experimental unit) were pooled together, and a subsample was taken
from the ground samples for Kjeldahl-N determination. Total N yield
(TNY, kg N ha−1) of maize was defined as AGB (kg ha−1) multiplied by
above-ground plant N concentration (%) (PNC):
TNY = AGB × PNC
2.2. Optimizing spectral index
In order to quantify TNY with spectral index, we considered the
published and widely used spectral indices in our experiments, in-
cluding the red-band-based NDVI and RVI, the chlorophyll-sensitive
red-edge-based normalized index (NDRE), the red-edge chlorophyll
index (CIred edge), the MERIS satellite land chlorophyll index (MTCI),
the canopy chlorophyll content index (CCCI), the green-band normal-
ized vegetation index (GNDVI), the green light chlorophyll index
(CIgreen), and several combined red and red-edge spectral indices that
are sensitive to chlorophyll and plant nitrogen (TCARI/OSAVI and
MCARI/OSAVI) (Table 1). In order to test the effect of bandwidth on
the stability of these spectral indices, we simulated the band of the
WorldView-2 satellite as a broad band, e.g. green (510–580 nm), red
(630–690 nm), red-edge (705–745 nm), and NIR (770–895 nm), and
the above-mentioned narrow band spectral indices were separately and
calculated as a broadband spectral index.
To improve the performance of the existing two- and three-band
spectral indices, we optimized the NDVI-, RVI-, and CCCI-based spectral
Hasituya, et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403

Table 1
Spectral indices, formula and references.
Spectral Indices Formula References

Ratio vegetation index (RVI) R790/R670 Jordan (1969)

Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (R790 – R670)/(R790 + R670) Rouse et al.(1974)
Green normalized difference vegetation index (GNDVI) (R790 − R550)/(R790 + R550) Gitelson and Merzlyak
(1996)
Normalized difference red edge index (NDRE) (R790 − R720)/(R790 + R720) Fitzgerald et al., (2010)
Red edge chlorophyll index (CI red edge) R790/R720 – 1 Gitelson et al.,(2005)
Green chlorophyll index (CI green) R790/R550 – 1 Gitelson et al.,(2005)
MERIS terrestrial chlorophyll index (MTCI) (R750 – R710)/(R710 – R680) Dash & Curran (2004)
Canopy chlorophyll content index (CCCI) (NDRE – NDREMIN)/(NDREMAX – NDREMIN) Fitzgerald et al., (2010)
Transformed chlorophyll absorption in reflectance index/Optimized 3*[(R700 – R670) – 0.2*(R700 – R550)(R700/R670)]/[(1 + 0.16)(R800 – Haboudane et al. (2002)
soil–adjusted vegetation index (TCARI/OSAVI–red) R670)/(R800 + R670 + 0.16)]
Modified chlorophyll absorption in reflectance index index/Optimized {[(R700 – R670) – 0.2*(R700 – R550)](R700/R670)}/[(1 + 0.16)(R800 – Haboudane et al. (2002)
soil–adjusted vegetation index (MCARI/OSAVI-red) R670)/(R800 + R670 + 0.16)]
Red edge–based transformed chlorophyll absorption in reflectance 3*[(R750 – R705) – 0.2*(R750 – R550)(R750/R705)]/[(1 + 0.16)(R750 – Wu et al. (2008)
index/Optimized soil–adjusted vegetation index (TCARI/OSAVI- R705)/(R750 + R705 + 0.16)]
RE)
Red edge–based modified chlorophyll absorption in reflectance index/ {[(R750 – R705) – 0.2*(R750 – R550)](R750/R705)}/[(1 + 0.16)(R750 – Wu et al. (2008)
Optimized soil–adjusted vegetation index (MCARI/OSAVI-RE) R705)/(R750 + R705 + 0.16)]

indices by developing two- and three-band spectral indices with all Table 2
possible combinations of two and three wavelengths from 350 to Descriptive statistics of TNY of maize for calibration and validation datasets.
1150 nm. A correlation matrix contour graph and a slice map were Year Growth stage Calibration Validation
constructed through regression analysis, and the coefficient of de-
termination was calculated. The central wavelength and bandwidth Range Mean SD Range Mean SD
were determined to optimize the selected spectral index according to
2011 V6-V7 6.4–31.9 20.8 6.4 – – –
the highest coefficients of determination (R2). Both the narrow- and 2012 V10-V12 10.4–104.8 64.3 21.7 20.2–84.0 59.3 17.9
broadband spectral indices were optimized using MATLAB 7.0 software 2013 V6 6.9–47.7 22.0 9.1 6.9–46.9 21.3 9.1
(The MathWorks, Inc., Natick, MA). V10 16.8–95.4 56.9 18.7 21.8–97.8 61.7 26.4

2.3. Data analysis
The TNY data from plant samples and the optimized spectral index
in experimental fields were used to calibrate the regression models
between spectral indices and the TNY of different cultivars of maize in
the V6-V12 growth stages. Data obtained from farmerś fields were used
to validate the regression models. The R2, RE (Relative Error, %), and
root mean square error (RMSE) were compared to validate the overall
accuracy of the developed model. The higher R2 and the lower RMSE
and RE represent the higher performance of the developed model for
quantifying TNY. To verify the improvement of optimized VI vs biomass
saturation effect due to high plant density, the noise equivalent (NE) as
proposed by Gitelson (2013) was used to test the sensitivity of the de-
veloped spectral indices.
RMSE(VIvs. TNY)
NE =
d(VI)/d(TNY)
where d(VI)/d(TNY) is the first derivative of VI with respect to TNY of
maize and RMSE (VI vs. TNY) is the RMSE of the VI versus TNY re-
lationship. The NE provides a dynamic measure of the sensitivity of VI
responds to TNY (Viña and Gitelson, 2005; Peng et al., 2017).
3. Results and discussions
3.1. TNY of maize at different growth stages and years
Table 2 shows mean and standard deviation (SD) of the TNY of
maize across different growth stages and years, and the datasets used
for calibration and validation. The mean values of the TNY increased
with growth stages from V6 to V12, and the mean values ranged from
20.8 to 64.3 kg N ha−1 for calibration datasets and from 21.3 to
61.7 kg N ha−1 in validation datasets across growth stages and years.
3.2. Identifying sensitive band location and bandwidth of two- and three-
band spectral indices for the best performance of estimating TNY of maize
Based on the comparison of the correlation coefficients of existing
narrow- and broadband spectral indices with the TNY of maize (Table
S1), the two-band NDSI and RSI and three-band CCCI with higher
coefficient were chosen for further optimizing in this study. The wa-
velength position and bandwidth play an important role in optimizing
two- and three-band spectral indices. To find out the right wavelength
and bandwidth, the contour map was applied to calculate the R2 for the
linear relationship between TNY and all possible two-band NDSI and
the RSI ranging from 350 to 1150 nm in the V6-V12 growth stages of
maize (Fig. 1). The sensitive bands of both NDSI and the RSI were
mainly concentrated on the red-edge (720–760 nm) and NIR region
(750–900 nm). However, the central wavelengths of the NDSI and RSI
were different. The central wavelengths of the NDSI were 768 and
740 nm, respectively, while those of the RSI were 756 and 744 nm,
which agreed with findings from Yu et al. (2013). They found that the
sensitive bands of 730–735 nm (red edge) and 775–808 nm (NIR) were
useful for assessing TNY of rice before heading.
The relationships between the best performed narrow band NDRE,
CI, and optimized NDSI and RSI versus TNY are presented in Fig. 2. The
R2 for optimized NDSI and RSI was slightly increased compared to
NDRE and RSI. However, the NDRE and RSI showed nonlinear relations
with TNY (exponential and quadratic relationship, respectively),
whereas there was a linear relationship for optimized NDSI and RSI. In
spite of the higher R2 for a nonlinear relation, the sensitivity of spectral
indices probably decreased from moderate to high biomass (Gitelson
and Merzlyak, 1996), confirming that contour map is a suitable tool for
improving the performance of spectral indices (Stroppiana et al., 2009;
Yu et al., 2013; Li et al., 2014b). Furthermore, Mistele and
Schmidhalter (2008) showed that the red- and green-band-based
spectral indices (RNDVI and GNDVI) lose sensitivity when estimating
the nitrogen nutrition index and biomass in the V10 stage of maize

3
Hasituya, et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403

Fig. 1. Matrix diagram of R2 (coefficients of determination) for linear relationship model of TNY and spectral index calculated from two wavelength combinations
from 350 to 1150 nm in V6-V12 growth stages of maize across three years: (a) NDSI and (b) RSI.

under conditions of high biomass. The results here showed that the red indices involving a red edge band around 720 nm yielded a very ac-
edge based indices generally resulted in better relationships with the curate estimation of Gross primary productivity (GPP) in maize and
TNY of maize compared to the other spectral indices. The spectral soybean (Peng and Gitelson, 2012). In contrast, our study found that

Fig. 2. Relationship between the narrow band (a) NDRE, (b) CI, (c) optimized NDSI (R768, R740) and (d) RSI (R756, R744) versus TNY of maize in V6-V12 growth
stages.

4
Hasituya, et al.
Fig. 3. Influence of band width on predicting accuracy of the optimized two-band spectral indices (a) NDSI and (b) RSI for TNY of maize.
the red edge band around 740 nm was more robust in estimating TNY of
maize compared to other red edge bands, suggesting that red edge
bands probably are specific in crop indicators and species.
Fig. 3 shows the effect of different bandwidths on the accuracy of
the NDSI and RSI in predicting the TNY of maize. The R2 values of both
the NDSI and the RSI decreased with the increase in bandwidth, in-
dicating that the prediction accuracy of the TNY of maize was gradually
reduced by the increase in bandwidth. The bandwidth of central wa-
velength 740 nm (red edge) of the NDSI increased by 13 nm and that of
central wavelength 768 nm (near-infrared) was extended by 21 nm. The
bandwidth of central wavelength 744 nm (red edge) of the RSI in-
creased by 29 nm and that of central wavelength 756 nm (near-in-
frared) was extended by 17 nm. R2 was almost constant. Fig. 4 shows
the regression of the broadband NDRE, CI and optimized NDSI and RSI
versus TNY, indicating that increasing the bandwidth of the central
wavelength does not affect the prediction ability of the optimized two-
band spectral index.
The three-dimensional R2 slice map (vertical and horizontal) of the
relationship between TNY and the CCCI was calculated from all possible
combinations in V6-V12 growth stages (Fig. S1). The results suggest
that the most sensitive band regions were 720–760 nm (red-edge),
500–600 nm (green) and 740–800 nm (the shoulder of NIR). The cen-
tral wavelengths of the optimized CCCI were 766, 738 and 548 nm,
respectively.
The study showed that the optimized narrow CCCI is an effective
index in assessing TNY. The R2 reached 0.85, which is higher than that
of the optimized two-band spectral index (R2 = 0.83). Compared with
the best performed published three-band MTCI and CCCI, the perfor-
mance of the optimized three-band CCCI was increased by about 8%
(Fig. 5). Moreover, there was a good linear relationship even in the case
of high TNY compared to the normal CCCI, which may solve the sa-
turation problem of the red- and green-based spectral indices under
high TNY. Similarly, a new developed three-band spectral index (NPDI)
by Li et al. (2014b) using the band optimum algorithm greatly in-
creased predictive performance for the estimation of TNY in wheat. In
the exception of NIR band, the other sensitive red edge and green band
were almost consistent to the optimized CCCI in this study. Using three-
band conceptual model, Gitelson et al. (2005, 2006) developed a red
edge chlorophyll index (CI) and the chlorophyll content, GPP and LAI
(leaf area index) were successfully estimated regardless of species,
growth stages and years (Peng et al., 2012, 2017). Our results suggest
that red edge is informative band in remotely deriving agronomic in-
dicators. Accurate selection of red edge bands and spectral index al-
gorithm instruction plays an important role in improving the perfor-
mance of spectral indices (Verrelst et al., 2019). In general, the soil
5
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403
background significantly influences the spectral reflectance at the ca-
nopy scale in the early growth stages, especially in the V6-V7 stage. The
reason for this may be that the CCCI provides a greater advantage than
the other published spectral indices (Table S1) (Clarke et al., 2001;
Cammarano et al., 2011), which could separate the vegetation signal
from the mixed signal of soil and vegetation.
A slice map of R2 derived from the linear relationship of the CCCI
and TNY was used to optimize the bandwidths (Fig. S2). The optimized
bandwidths were 37 nm in the green centre band of 548 nm and 17 nm
in both the NIR domain of 766 nm and the red-edge centre band of
738 nm. Compared with broadband MTCI and normal CCCI, The R2 of
the relationship between optimized broadband CCCI and the TNY of
maize reached 0.85, suggesting that extending the width of each central
wavelength has little influence on the prediction ability of the CCCI
(Fig. 6). In agreement with our study, Gitelson et al. (2005, 2006)
identified the bandwidths of red edge chlorophyll index (CIred edge) for
the estimation of chlorophyll content of crop canopy and leaf. These
studies may help future development for new spectra sensor in remotely
deriving bio-physical and chemical indicators (Peng and Gitelson,
2012).
3.3. Validation of optimized spectral indices for estimating TNY of maize in
farmers’ fields
In order to investigate the robustness of the optimized spectral
index, an independent dataset from the farmeŕs field in V6-V12 growth
stage was used to validate the developed regression models. As illu-
strated in Table 3, the accuracy of optimized two- and three-band
spectral indices indicates the best performance compared with the ex-
isted indices in predicting TNY. Particularly, the optimized CCCI
showed the highest predictive ability; the highest R2 (0.86), the lowest
RMSE (9.6), and the RE% was less than 23% (Table 3). The predicted
points were evenly distributed around the 1:1 line (Fig. 7). Considering
the fact that the applied N rate in farmers’ practice well exceed the
demand of maize in local area, the validated results provide an op-
portunity for accurate N management. Particularly, through developing
optimized spectral indices based N management algorithm, N use effi-
ciency can be greatly improved in on-farm fields, which reduces the risk
of N losses into the environment (Li et al., 2009; Cao et al., 2017).
3.4. Evaluation of the accuracy and robustness of prediction models for
TNY of maize cultivars at growth stages
The R2 and RMSE are the most commonly used indicators to eval-
uate the performance of spectral indices in estimating agronomic
Hasituya, et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403

Fig. 4. Relationship between the optimized broad-band (a) NDRE, (b) CI, (c) NDSI and (d) RSI versus TNY of maize in V6-V12 growth stages.

parameters. However, one disadvantage of this method probably is
misleading because of lacking dynamic evaluation of sensitivity of
spectral indices, particularly when the best-fit regression models be-
tween spectral indices and agronomic parameters exhibit a nonlinear
relationships. To better evaluate these indices, we used the method of
the noise equivalent (NE) as suggested by Gitelson (2013) to compare
the best performing published red edge indices and optimized CCCI. As
shown in Fig. 8, both optimized narrow and broad band CCCI for
estimating TNY had the lowest NE among the VIs tested. For NE of
published red edge indices, the NDRE and normal CCCI showed low
sensitivity when TNY exceeded 60 kg N ha−1 compared to MTCI. The
results further demonstrate that identifying suitable centre bands and
bandwidths for exist spectral indices is very important to estimate
specific agronomic parameter (Gitelson, 2013; Li et al., 2014b; Verrelst,
et al., 2019).
Many studies have demonstrated that cultivars and growth stages

Fig. 5. Relationship between the narrow band (a) MTCI, (b) CCCI and (c) optimized CCCI and TNY of maize in V6-V12 growth stages.

6
Hasituya, et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403

Fig. 6. Relationship between broadband (a) MTCI, (b) CCCI and (c) optimized CCCI and TNY of maize in V6-V12 growth stages.

Table 3 unreasonable to evaluate the effect of growth stages on the performance

The validation of the developed calibration model between the different narrow of spectral indices only using a linear relationship without ANCOVA
and broad-band spectral indices and TNY of maize in V6-V12 growth stages. analysis. In summary, although growth stages affected the performance
Spectral indices R2 RMSE RE (%) of the optimized CCCI, the scattering of points in V6-V7 were quite
closed to the regression line (Fig. 5c; Fig. 6c), suggesting that it is
Narrowband MTCI 0.82 13.2 30.7 possible to use an integrated regression model to accurately estimate
CCCI 0.84 11.1 25.8
maize TNY in both V6-V7 and V10-V12 growth stages. However, more
Optimized NDSI 0.84 10.4 24.1
Optimized RSI 0.84 10.4 24.2 data may be needed to eliminate the effect of growth stages by using
Optimized CCCI 0.86 9.6 22.4 bands optimum algorithm of spectral indices, which should further be
Broadband MTCI 0.79 13.2 30.7 tested and validated in other ecological regions.
CCCI 0.78 14.3 33.3
Optimized NDSI 0.84 10.4 24.1
Optimized RSI 0.84 10.3 24.1
4. Conclusion
Optimized CCCI 0.85 9.9 23.0
In this study, the centre bands and bandwidths of spectral indices
for quantifying the TNY of maize were optimized, and a quantitative
had a great influence on the performance of the spectral indices in es- relationship model of optimized spectral indices and the TNY of maize
timating TNY of crops (Yu et al., 2013; Li et al., 2014b). In the present was established and validated. The predictive ability of optimized
study, we performed an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to assess the spectral indices significantly decreased with the increase in bandwidth.
influence of growth stages and cultivars on the performance of the The optimized CCCI was stable and consistent in estimating the TNY of
optimized CCCI. The results showed that cultivars did not result in maize across cultivars and years. To some extent, however, growth
significant difference in the slope of the relationship between TNY and stages may affect the performance of optimized CCCI. The results in our
optimized CCCI, suggesting that cultivars had little effect on the per- study suggest that the new optimized CCCI provides a better solution
formance of optimized CCCI (Fig. 9a,b). In contrast, growth stages for the saturation problems caused by the traditional red-band spectral
significantly influenced the performance of the optimized CCCI due to index under the condition of a high coverage of maize plants. The three-
the difference in slope among different growth stages (Fig. 9c,d). The band optimized algorithm may be useful for designing improved N
main reason for such difference might be that the coverage of the plants diagnosis systems and for enhancing the applications of ground- and
in V6-V7 growth stage was lower than in V10-V12 stage. Therefore, it is satellite-based sensors. The algorithm in this study may be of great

Fig. 7. Validation of the predicting ability of optimized narrow band (a) and broad-band (b) CCCI for TNY of maize in V6-V12 growth stages in farmeŕs field.

7
Hasituya, et al. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403

Fig. 8. Noise equivalent of total N yield estimation by the (a) narrowband and (b) broadband spectral indices.

Fig. 9. Influence of maize cultivars and growth stages on the relationship between optimized CCCI and TNY in calibration datasets. (a,b illustrates the influence of
cultivars; c, d shows the influence of growth stages; P value represents the significance test of the influence of cultivars and growth stages using analysis of
covariance).

8
Hasituya, et al.
significance in monitoring the active N flow in an agro-ecosystem as
well.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Hasituya: Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review &
editing. Fei Li: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Data cura-
tion, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Investigation, Supervision,
Software, Validation, Writing - review & editing. Salah Elsayed:
Writing - review & editing. Yuncai Hu: . Urs Schmidhalter: Writing -
review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study was financially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (31060273), Young Scientific and
Technological Backbone Fund of School (2017XQG-3) and Outstanding
Doctoral Introduction Fund of School (NDYB2017-1).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2020.105403.
References
Baresel, J.P., Rischbeck, P., Kipp, S., Hu, Y., Barmeier, G., Mistele, B., Schmidhalter, U.,
2017. Use of a digital camera as alternative method for non-destructive detection of
the leaf chlorophyll content and the nitrogen nutrition status in wheat. Comput.
Electron. Agric. 140, 25–33.
Cammarano, D., Fitzgerald, G., Basso, B., O’Leary, G., Chen, D., Grace, P., Fiorentino, C.,
2011. Use of the Canopy Chlorophyl Content Index (CCCI) for remote estimation of
wheat nitrogen content in rainfed environments. Agron. J. 103, 1597–1603.
Cao, Q., Miao, Y., Li, F., Gao, X., Liu, B., Lu, D., Chen, X., 2017. Developing a new crop
circle active canopy sensor-based precision nitrogen management strategy for winter
wheat in North China Plain. Precision Agric. 18, 2–18.
Clarke, T.R., Moran, M.S., Barnes, E.M., Pinter Jr., P.J., Qi, J., 2001. Planar domain in-
dices: a method for measuring a quality of a single component in two-component
pixels. In: Proc. IEEE International Geosci. Remote Sens. Sympos. Sydney, Australia,
9-13 July unpaginated CD.
Dash, J., Curran, P.J., 2004. The MERIS terrestrial chlorophyll index. Int. J. Remote Sens.
25, 5403–5413.
El-Hendawy, S., Hassan, W.M., Refay, Y., Schmidhalter, U., 2017. On the use of spectral
reflectance indices to assess agro-morphological traits of wheat plants grown under
simulated saline field conditions. J. Agro. Crop Sci. 1–23.
Elsayed, S., Barmeier, G., Schmidhalter, U., 2018. Passive reflectance sensing and digital
image analysis allows for assessing the biomass and nitrogen status of wheat in early
and late tillering stages. Front. Plant Sci. 9, 1478. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.
01478.
Erdle, K., Mistele, B., Schmidhalter, U., 2011. Comparison of active and passive spectral
sensors in discriminating biomass parameters and nitrogen status in wheat cultivars.
Field Crops Res. 124, 74–84.
Fitzgerald, G.J., Rodriguez, D., O’Leary, G., 2010. Measuring and predicting canopy ni-
trogen nutrition in wheat using a spectral index-The canopy chlorophyll content
index (CCCI). Field Crops Res. 116, 318–324.
Freeman, K.W., Girma, K., Arnall, D.B., Mullen, R.W., Martin, K.L., Teal, R.K., Raun, W.R.,
2007. By-plant prediction of corn forage biomass and nitrogen uptake at various
growth stages using remote sensing and plant height. Agron. J. 99, 530–536.
Frels, K., Guttieri, M., Joyce, B., Leavitt, B., Stephen Baenziger., P., 2018. Evaluating
canopy spectral reflectance vegetation indices to estimate nitrogen use traits in hard
winter wheat, Field Crops Res. 217, 82-92.
Gitelson, A., Merzlyak, M.N., 1996. Signature analysis of leaf reflectance spectra: algo-
rithm development for remote sensing of chlorophyll. J. Plant Physiol. 148, 494–500.
Gitelson, A.A., Viña, A., Ciganda, V., Rundquist, D.C., Arkebauer, T.J., 2005. Remote
estimation of canopy chlorophyll content in crops. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L08403.
Gitelson, A., Merzlyak, M.N., 1996. Signature analysis of leaf reflectance spectra: algo-
rithm development for remote sensing of chlorophyll. J. Plant Physiol. 148, 494–500.
View publication stats
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 173 (2020) 105403
Gitelson, A.A., Keydan, G.P., Merzlyak, M.N., 2006. Three-band model for noninvasive
estimation of chlorophyll, carotenoids, and anthocyanin contents in higher plant
leaves. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L11402. https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026457.
Gitelson, A.A., 2013. Remote estimation of crop fractional vegetation cover: the use of
noise equivalent as an indicator of performance of vegetation indices. Int. J. Rem.
Sens. 34, 6054–6066.
Haboudane, D., Miller, J.R., Tremblay, N., Zarco-Tejada, P.J., Dextraze, L., 2002.
Integrated narrow-band vegetation indices for prediction of crop chlorophyll content
for application to precision agriculture. Remote Sens. Environ. 81, 416–426.
Hatfield, J.L., Gitelson, A.A., Schepers, J.S., Walthall, C.L., 2008. Application of spectral
remote sensing for agronomic decisions. Agron. J. 100, 117–131.
Jordan, C.F., 1969. Derivation of leaf-area index from quality of light on the forest floor.
Ecology 50, 663–666.
Ju, X., Christie, P., 2011. Calculation of theoretical nitrogen rate for simple nitrogen
recommendations in intensive cropping systems: a case study on the North China
Plain. Field Crops Res. 124, 450–458.
Kanke, Y., Raun, W., Solie, J., Stone, M., Taylor, R., 2012. Red edge as a potential index
for detecting differences in plant nitrogen status in winter wheat. J. Plant Nutri. 35,
1526–1541.
Kipp, S., Mistele, B., Schmidhalter, U., 2014. The performance of active spectral re-
flectance sensors as influenced by measuring distance, device temperature and light
intensity. Comput. Electron. Agric. 100, 24–33.
Li, F., Miao, Y., Zhang, F., Cui, Z., Li, R., Chen, X., Zhang, H., Schroder, J., Raun, W.R., Jia,
L., 2009. In-season optical sensing improves nitrogen-use efficiency for winter wheat.
Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 73, 1566–1574.
Li, F., Mistele, B., Hu, Y., Chen, X., Schmidhalter, U., 2013. Comparing hyperspectral
index optimization algorithms to estimate aerial N uptake using multi-temporal
winter wheat datasets from contrasting climatic and geographic zones in China and
Germany. Agric. For. Meteorol. 180, 44–57.
Li, F., Miao, Y., Feng, G., Yuan, F., Yue, S., Gao, X., Liu, Y., Liu, B., Ustin, S.L., Chen, X.,
2014a. Improving estimation of summer maize nitrogen status with red edge-based
spectral vegetation indices. Field Crops Res. 157, 111–123.
Li, F., Mistele, B., Hu, Y., Chen, X., Schmidhalter, U., 2014b. Optimising three-band
spectral indices to assess aerial N concentration, N uptake and aboveground biomass
of winter wheat remotely in China and Germany. ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote
Sens. 92, 112–123.
Loozen, Y., Karssenberg, D., de Jong, S.M., Wang, S.Q., van Dijk, J., Wassen, M.J., Rebel,
K.T., 2019. Exploring the use of vegetation indices to sense canopy nitrogen to
phosphorous ratio in grasses. Int. J. Appl. Earth. Obs. 75, 1–14.
Magney, T., Eitel, J., Vierling, L., 2017. Mapping wheat nitrogen uptake from RapidEye
vegetation indices. Precision Agriculture 18, 429–451.
Mistele, B., Schmidhalter, U., 2008. Estimating the nitrogen nutrition index using spectral
canopy reflectance measurements. Eur. J. Agron. 29, 184–190.
Mistele, B., Schmidhalter, U., 2010. Tractor-based quadrilateral spectral reflectance
measurements to detect biomass and total aerial nitrogen in winter wheat. Agron. J.
102, 499–506.
Ollinger, S.V., Richardson, A.D., Martin, M.E., Hollinger, D.Y., Frolking, S.E., Reich, P.B.,
Plourde, L.C., Katul, G.G., Munger, J.W., Oren, R., Smithb, M.L., U, K.T.P., Bolstad, P.
V., Cook, B.D., Day, M.C., Martin, T.A., Monson, R.K., Schmid, H.P., 2008. Canopy
nitrogen, carbon assimilation, and albedo in temperate and boreal forests: Functional
relations and potential climate feedbacks. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 19336-19341.
Peng, Y., Gitelson, A.A., 2012. Remote estimation of gross primary productivity in soy-
bean and maize based on total crop chlorophyll content. Rem. Sens. Environ. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2011.10.021.
Peng, Y., Nguy-Robertson, A., Arkebauer, T., Gitelson, A.A., 2017. Assessment of canopy
chlorophyll content retrieval in maize and soybean: implications of hysteresis on the
development of generic algorithms. Remote Sens. 9, 226. https://doi.org/10.3390/
rs9030226.
Pinkalski, C., Jensen, K.M.V., Damgaard, C., Offenberg, J., 2018. Foliar uptake of nitrogen
from ant faecal droplets: an overlooked service to ant-plants. J. Ecol. 106, 289–295.
Rouse, J.W., Haas, R.H., Schell, J.A., Deering, D.W., Harlan, J.C., 1974. Monitoring the
vernal advancement of retrogradation of natural vegetation. NASA/GSFC, Type III,
Final Report, Greenbelt MD, USA.
Stroppiana, D., Boschetti, M., Brivio, P.A., Bocchi, S., 2009. Plant nitrogen concentration
in paddy rice from field canopy hyperspectral radiometry. Field Crops Res. 111,
119–129.
Verrelst, J., Malenovský, Z., Tol, C.V., Camps-Valls, G., Gastellu-Etchegorry, J., Lewis, P.,
Peter North, P., Moreno, J., 2019. Quantifying vegetation biophysical variables from
imaging spectroscopy data: a review on retrieval methods. Surv. Geophys. 40,
589–629.
Viña, A., Gitelson, A., 2005. New developments in the remote estimation of the fraction of
absorbed photosynthetically active radiation in crops. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32,
L17403. https://doi.org/10.1029/2005GL023647.
Winterhalter, L., Mistele, B., Jampatong, S., Schmidhalter, U., 2011. High throughput
sensing of aerial biomass and above ground nitrogen uptake in the vegetative stage of
well-watered and drought stressed tropical maize hybrids. Crop Sci. 51, 479–489.
Wu, C., Niu, Z., Tang, Q., Huang, W., 2008. Estimating chlorophyll content from hy-
perspectral vegetation indices: modeling and validation. Agric. For. Meteorol. 148,
1230–1241.
Yu, K., Li, F., Gnyp, M.L., Miao, Y., Bareth, G., Chen, X., 2013. Remotely detecting canopy
nitrogen concentration and uptake of paddy rice in the Northeast China Plain. ISPRS
J. Photogramm. Remote Sens. 78, 102–115.