Nutritional Characterization Based on Vegetation Indices to Detect Anthocyanins, Carotenoids, and Chlorophylls in Mini-Lettuce
Andressa Alves Clemente,
Gabriel Mascarenhas Maciel,
Ana Carolina Silva Siquieroli,
Rodrigo Bezerra de Araujo Gallis,
José Magno Queiroz Luz,
Fernando César Sala,
Lucas Medeiros Pereira,
Rickey Yoshio Yada
Affiliations
Andressa Alves Clemente
Postgraduate Program in Agriculture and Geospatial Information, Institute of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of Uberlândia, Monte Carmelo 38500-000, Brazil
Gabriel Mascarenhas Maciel
Institute of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of Uberlândia, Monte Carmelo 38500-000, Brazil
Ana Carolina Silva Siquieroli
Institute of Biotechnology, Federal University of Uberlândia, Monte Carmelo 38500-000, Brazil
Rodrigo Bezerra de Araujo Gallis
Institute of Geography, Federal University of Uberlândia, Monte Carmelo 38500-000, Brazil
José Magno Queiroz Luz
Institute of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of Uberlândia, Uberlândia 38410-337, Brazil
Fernando César Sala
Center of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of São Carlos, Araras 13604-900, Brazil
Lucas Medeiros Pereira
Postgraduate Program in Agriculture and Geospatial Information, Institute of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of Uberlândia, Monte Carmelo 38500-000, Brazil
Rickey Yoshio Yada
Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
When obtaining new cultivars or monitoring the nutritional composition of lettuce, new techniques are necessary given the high cost and time required to conduct laboratory analyses of plant composition by conventional methods. The objective of this study was to evaluate different vegetation indices for the estimation of anthocyanin, chlorophyll, and carotenoids in mini-lettuce genotypes with different leaf colors and different typologies from red, green, and blue (RGB) images. The contents of pigments were evaluated in 15 lettuce genotypes, in addition to the soil plant analysis development (SPAD) index and vegetation indices in the visible range. The variability among genotypes was confirmed by the Scott-Knott test (p 2 = 0.75), carotenoid (r = −0.59; r2 = 0.43), chlorophyll a (r = −0.69; r2 = 0.48), chlorophyll b (r = −0.62; r2 = 0.39), and total chlorophyll (r = −0.77; r2 = 0.65) in red and green mini-lettuce. The high-performance phenotyping technique can be used to evaluate leaf pigments in breeding programs, as well as in crops for monitoring biofortification levels in lettuce.
