Discrimination of sugarcane varieties in Southeastern Brazil with EO-1 Hyperion data

Hyperspectral data acquired by the Hyperion instrument, on board the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite, were evaluated for the discrimination of five important Brazilian sugarcane varieties (RB72-454, SP80-1816, SP80-1842, SP81-3250, and SP87-365). The radiance values were converted into surface reflectance images by a MODTRAN4-based technique. To discriminate varieties with similar reflectance values, multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) was applied over the data. To obtain an adequate discriminant function, a stepwise method was used to select the best variables among surface reflectance values, ratios of reflectance, and several spectral indices potentially sensitive to changes in chlorophyll content, leaf water, and lignin-cellulose. Results showed that the five Brazilian sugarcane varieties were discriminated using EO-1 Hyperion data. Differences in canopy architecture affected sunlight penetration and reflectance, resulting in a higher reflectance for planophile (e.g., SP81-3250) than erectophile (e.g., SP80-1842) sugarcane plants. The variety SP80-1842 presented lower reflectance values, deeper lignin-cellulose absorption bands at 2103 nm and 2304 nm, shallower leaf liquid water absorption bands at 983 nm and 1205 nm, and lower leaf liquid water content than the other sugarcane varieties. To discriminate this cultivar, a single near-infrared (NIR) band threshold was used. To discriminate the other four sugarcane varieties with similar reflectance values, MDA was used producing a classification accuracy of 87.5% for a hold-out set of pixels. The comparison between the ground truth data and the MDA-derived classification image confirmed the model' capacity to differentiate the varieties accurately. The best results were obtained for the cultivar SP87-365 that presented the lowest spectral variability in the discriminant space. Some misclassified areas were associated with the cultivars SP80-1816 and SP81-3250 that showed the highest spectral variability.