Summer Maize Growth Estimation Based on Near-Surface Multi-Source Data

Rapid and accurate crop chlorophyll content estimation and the leaf area index (LAI) are both crucial for guiding field management and improving crop yields. This paper proposes an accurate monitoring method for LAI and soil plant analytical development (SPAD) values (which are closely related to leaf chlorophyll content; we use the SPAD instead of chlorophyll relative content) based on the fusion of ground–air multi-source data. Firstly, in 2020 and 2021, we collected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) multispectral data, ground hyperspectral data, UAV visible-light data, and environmental cumulative temperature data for multiple growth stages of summer maize, respectively. Secondly, the effective plant height (canopy height model (CHM)), effective accumulation temperature (growing degree days (GDD)), canopy vegetation index (mainly spectral vegetation index) and canopy hyperspectral features of maize were extracted, and sensitive features were screened by correlation analysis. Then, based on single-source and multi-source data, multiple linear regression (MLR), partial least-squares regression (PLSR) and random forest (RF) regression were used to construct LAI and SPAD inversion models. Finally, the distribution of LAI and SPAD prescription plots was generated and the trend for the two was analyzed. The results were as follows: (1) The correlations between the position of the hyperspectral red edge and the first-order differential value in the red edge with LAI and SPAD were all greater than 0.5. The correlation between the vegetation index, including a red and near-infrared band, with LAI and SPAD was above 0.75. The correlation between crop height and effective accumulated temperature with LAI and SPAD was above 0.7. (2) The inversion models based on multi-source data were more effective than the models made with single-source data. The RF model with multi-source data fusion achieved the highest accuracy of all models. In the testing set, the LAI and SPAD models’ R² was 0.9315 and 0.7767; the RMSE was 0.4895 and 2.8387. (3) The absolute error between the extraction result of each model prescription map and the measured value was small. The error between the predicted value and the measured value of the LAI prescription map generated by the RF model was less than 0.4895. The difference between the predicted value and the measured value of the SPAD prescription map was less than 2.8387. The LAI and SPAD of summer maize first increased and then decreased with the advancement of the growth period, which was in line with the actual growth conditions. The research results indicate that the proposed method could effectively monitor maize growth parameters and provide a scientific basis for summer maize field management.