Tracking wheat senescence based on UAV multispectral imaging

Abstract

Crop senescence phenotyping usually relies on visual assessment, which, however, is time-consuming and cannot reflect the dynamic process of the physiological senescence of plants. Thus, high throughput and non-destructive methods are needed to capture the senescence dynamics. This study proposes a new method for assessing senescence based on spectral in wheat leaves. A suite of spectral indices (SIs) related to the absorption signals of chlorophylls and anthocyanins were calculated from the multispectral images acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The preliminary results hold promise for the development of new traits to identify genetic regulators of crop senescence.