Abstract
For more than 50 years, satellite images have been used to monitor crop growth. Currently, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery is being assessed for analyzing within field spatial variability for agricultural precision management, because UAV imagery may be acquired quickly during critical periods of rapid crop growth. This study refers to the derivation of growth estimating equation for highland Kimchi cabbage using UAV derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and agro-meteorological factors. Anbandeok area in Gangneung, Gangwon-do, Korea is one of main districts producing highland Kimchi cabbage. UAV imagery was taken in the Anbandeok ten times from early June to early September. Meanwhile, three plant growth parameters, plant height (P.H.), leaf length (L.L.) and outer leaf number (L.N.), were measured for about 40 plants (ten plants per plot) for each ground survey. Six agro-meteorological factors include average temperature; maximum temperature; minimum temperature; accumulated temperature; rainfall and irradiation during growth period. The multiple linear regression models were suggested by using stepwise regression in the extraction of independent variables. As a result, $NDVI_{UAV}$ and rainfall in the model explain 93% of the P.H. and L.L. with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.22, 1.90 cm. And $NDVI_{UAV}$ and accumulated temperature in the model explain 86% of the L.N. with a RMSE of 4.29. These lead to the result that the characteristics of variations in highland Kimchi cabbage growth according to $NDVI_{UAV}$ and other agro-meteorological factors were well reflected in the model.
