Nitrogen status estimation of winter wheat by using an IKONOS satellite image in the North China Plain

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine relationship between high resolution satellite image and wheat N status, and develop a methodology to predict wheat N status in the farmers' fields. Field experiment with 5 different N rates was conducted in Huimin County in the North China Plain, and farmers' fields in 3 separated sites were selected as validation plots. The IKONOS image covering all research sites was obtained at shooting stage in 2006. The results showed that single band reflectance of NIR, Red and Green and vegetation indices of NDVI, GNDVI, RVI and OSAVI all well correlated with wheat N status parameters. Field validation results indicated that the prediction models using OSAVI performed well in predicting N uptake in the farmers' fields (R 2 = 0.735). We conclude that high resolution satellite images like IKONOS are useful tools in N fertilization management in the North China Plain. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.