Abstract
Abstract. Left-over crop residue on the surface is a measure of tillage intensity and soil management, and is an integral part of the conservation agriculture practice. Remote sensing can be successfully used to monitor the large area crop residue cover which is otherwise difficult through the conventional way, provided the spectrally similar crop residues and soil can be suitably differentiated. Hyperspectral reflectance (350–2500 nm) of various quantities of crop residue cover over red soil was measured with varying moisture contents in the residue. A broad spectrum near 2100 mm was identified for dry residue, which was not recorded in soil spectra. This could possibly be linked to the cellulose-lignin content. The cellulose absorption index (CAI) was evaluated for crop residue cover with moderate to good correlations, with strong dependency on the residue water content. A few narrow bands were identified to characterize both the cellulose-lignin (i.e. the CAI) and the water content, and could be incorporated in on-board multispectral sensors for regional estimation of crop residue over the soil surface.
Highlights
The critical need to match the increasing world population and food production gave rise to sustainable land management strategies
Red soil collected from Saravanampatti, Coimbatore was tested in the laboratory and its spectral reflectance was recorded
The soil spectra tested in the laboratory for different moisture conditions ranging from saturated to dry can be seen in figure 3 below
Summary
The critical need to match the increasing world population and food production gave rise to sustainable land management strategies. The standard technique to estimate crop residue cover used earlier by the U.S Department of AgricultureNatural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) was using a line-transect method which proved to be tedious and impractical method (Morrison, Huan, Lightle, & Daughtry, 1993) Other methods such as visual estimation, point intercept, meter stick and photographic techniques were found to be subjective, prone to errors and unsuitable for large spatial coverage. It was observed that in plants three narrow absorption features occurring at 1760, 2100 and 2300nm are associated with presence of nitrogen, cellulose and lignin concentrations (Curran, Dungan, & Peterson, 2001) These are not recognisable in fresh vegetation and wet crop residue spectra. These are not discernible in dry soils minerals present in the soil can
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