Abstract
We have shown previously that the leaf area index of uniform crops can be determined by using the sun's beam as a probe. Here, we show theoretically and empirically that the leaf area index of vegetation with large gaps can be measured by suitably averaging the local gap frequency, as detected by the transmission of the direct beam of the sun. The recommended procedure is to average the transmission linearly over a horizontal path ten times the characteristic width of a leaf and take the logarithm of this mean. The average of logarithms for many such paths is shown to be linearly related to the leaf area index. The estimate of leaf area index obtained by this procedure is more accurate than that obtained by averaging the transmission once over the full path. The analysis has been confirmed with measurements of crops of sorghum and wheat. The method is simple and appears most appropriate for forests.
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