Exploring the Possibility of Assessing Biochemical Variables in Sugarcane Crop with Sentinel-2 Data

Abstract

High precision remote analysis of biochemical variables can enable scientists to obtain very crucial information about crop plants. This information can help in the development of future strategies to protect the crops from different biotic and abiotic stresses thus improving the growth, yield and productivity of crops. Using Sentinel-2 data in combination of drone data for assessing biochemical variables in crop plants is the best choice for timely and accurate monitoring of these variables in the field. As Sentinel-2 data have high temporal as well as spatial resolution and also visible, infrared and red-edge region spectral bands which are highly sensitive to different vegetation properties. It is observed that these bands not only solve the problem of assessing the different crop variables, but its derivatives can provide detailed information on spectral features of crop plants in the form of vegetation indices. Also, for assessing the crop biochemical variable with satellite imagery, the challenge is the accurate identification of that particular agriculture field where the crop has to be monitored. For this purpose, precise agriculture field information is required, which can be obtained using drone images. Therefore, in this paper, a study is conducted to explore the possibility of Sentinel-2 band derivatives, i.e., vegetation indices in analyzing the sensitivity for biochemical variables of different varieties of sugarcane crops. A correlation analysis is carried out for sensitivity analysis between satellite-derived parameters and crop plant biochemical variables. It is observed that the maximum biochemical variables were quite sensitive with different vegetation indices.