Abstract
We present work towards a simple, portable instrument that can predict the amount of green biomass in pasture. The measurement principle is based on broadband visible to near infrared reflectance spectrometry, which has found wide application in remote sensing and has there been shown to provide a rapid assessment of green biomass. Our design utilizes light emitting diodes, which illuminate the pasture with narrowband radiation, a single detector that measures the reflected intensity, and analogue electronic processing to extract the signal from interfering noise caused by ambient radiation. The pasture reflectances measured with our meter were calibrated against green dry matter mass determined by harvesting, dissection, drying, and weighing of a broad range of samples. Multiple linear regression using the reflectances from two light emitting diodes with peak wavelengths of 598 and 896 nm gave correlations of r 2≈0.7 and a root mean square error of cross validation of 388 kg/ha for ryegrass pasture. This performance compares well with that of other instruments reported in the literature.
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