Abstract
These instructions refer to obtaining fast and low-labour estimates of ground cover, leaf area index and green biomass for a large number of plots, as those encountered in cereal breeding programs. The procedure includes obtaining the pictures in the field and processing them once downloaded to a computer.
Keywords: Image processing, Biomass assessment, Non-destructive methods, Leaf Area Index
Materials and Reagents
Equipment
Software
Procedure
The pictures must be obtained under stable lighting conditions for the whole sampling session. This can be either under clear sky or under moderately cloudy conditions if these are equivalent for all the plots. Also, to avoid differences in the length of shadows in the pictures the time of day would be preferably ± 3 h around solar noon. Wind conditions should be avoided because bent canopies may expose to the camera a different amount of their leaf area and different parts of the plants than in normal conditions.
Representative data
Acknowledgments
This protocol was adapted from Casadesus et al. (2007) and Casadesús and Villegas (2014).
References
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