Estimating pigment contents of crop leaves using hyperspectral data

Correlation analyses between the spectral reflectance and the pigment contents of five crop leaves including rice, cotton, colour cotton, corn and sugarcane were reported in this paper. Spectral reflectance over the 350-2500 nm range with a spectral resolution of 3 nm, and the content of chlorophyll a, b, a+b, and total carotenoids were determined for leaves from five crops covering a wide range of chlorophyll a content (0.2440 -3.8755mg/g). Maximum sensitivity of reflectance to variation in pigment content was found in the green, wavelength region at 550 nm and at 707 nm. The reflectance in the main the pigment absorption regions in the blue (400-500 nm) and red (660-690 nm) wavelengths proved to be insensitive to variation in pigment content. The ratio R670/(R550*R707) correlated best with chlorophyll a, a+b, and carotenoids contents. The ratio R670/R550 correlated best with chlorophyll b content.