Transferability of Models for Predicting Rice Grain Yield from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Multispectral Imagery across Years, Cultivars and Sensors
Hengbiao Zheng,
Wenhan Ji,
Wenhui Wang,
Jingshan Lu,
Dong Li,
Caili Guo,
Xia Yao,
Yongchao Tian,
Weixing Cao,
Yan Zhu,
Tao Cheng
Affiliations
Hengbiao Zheng
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Wenhan Ji
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Wenhui Wang
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Jingshan Lu
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Dong Li
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Caili Guo
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Xia Yao
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Yongchao Tian
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Weixing Cao
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Yan Zhu
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Tao Cheng
National Engineering and Technology Center for Information Agriculture, MARA Key Laboratory for Crop System Analysis and Decision Making, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Information Agriculture, Nanjing 210095, China
Timely and accurate prediction of crop yield prior to harvest is vital for precise agricultural management. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide a fast and convenient approach to crop yield prediction, but most existing crop yield models have rarely been tested across different years, cultivars and sensors. This has limited the ability of these yield models to be transferred to other years or regions or to be potentially used with data from other sensors. In this study, UAV-based multispectral imagery was used to predict rice grain yield at the booting and filling stages from four field experiments, involving three years, two rice cultivars, and two UAV sensors. Reflectance and texture features were extracted from the UAV imagery, and vegetation indices (VIs) and normalized difference texture indices (NDTIs) were computed. The models were independently validated to test the stability and transferability across years, rice cultivars, and sensors. The results showed that the red edge normalized difference texture index (RENDTI) was superior to other texture indices and vegetation indices for model regression with grain yield in most cases. However, the green normalized difference texture index (GNDTI) achieved the highest prediction accuracy in model validation across rice cultivars and sensors. The yield prediction model of Japonica rice achieved stronger transferability to Indica rice with root mean square error (RMSE), bias, and relative RMSE (RRMSE) of 1.16 t/ha, 0.08, and 11.04%, respectively. Model transferability was improved significantly between different sensors after band correction with a decrease of 15.05–59.99% in RRMSE. Random forest (RF) was found to be a good solution to improve the model transferability across different years and cultivars and obtained the highest prediction accuracy with RMSE, bias, and RRMSE of 0.94 t/ha, −0.21, and 9.37%, respectively. This study provides a valuable reference for crop yield prediction when existing models are transferred across different years, cultivars and sensors.
