Assessment of Winter Wheat Plant Development during the Seeding and Tillering Stages According to the Earth Remote Sensing Data

Abstract

Introduction. The importance of controlling the organogenesis stages is that it provides the opportunity to create favorable conditions during the development of certain elements of the yield structure by caring crops and influence the grain quality. The objective of the work is to define a connection between the Earth remote sensing data and the state of winter wheat plants in the initial period of their growth and development. Materials and Methods. The object of the study was the winter wheat plantings. The wheat varieties “Odisseya”, “Olympus”, “Niva Stavropolya”, “Victoria 11”, “Nastya” and “Firuza 40” were sown by plot in the experimental field. The industrial crops of winter wheat were studied to assess the state of the plants in the tillering stage in 2012–2013, 2013–2014 and 2015–2016 agricultural years. The Earth remote sensing data were obtained using the “VEGA” service of FBSI “Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences”. Results. The obtained function of the dependence of NDVI of winter wheat crops on the height and development stage of plants is a polynomial of the third degree and is characterized by high accuracy (Rcorr = 0.98). The analysis of the NDVI, RED and NIR data of fields on dates close to the dates of collecting plant samples showed a considerable degree of relationship between the vegetation index NDVI and height of winter wheat plants. In 2013, the correlation coefficient was 0.60, in 2014 – 0.66, in 2016 – 0.80, and in 2013–2016 on average about 0.85. Discussion and Conclusion. The studies have shown that the Earth remote sensing data can be used to assess the state and degree of the development of winter wheat crops during the seeding and tillering stages, including in the production conditions. To improve the accuracy of the assessment, it is better to use the spectral brightness values in the infrared region of the spectrum.