Influence of plant pigments on spectral reflectance of maize,groundnut and soybean grown in semi-arid environments

Abstract. Spectral reflectance of leaves is influenced primarily by plant pigments, chlorophyll and carotenoids. Such reflectance can be used to study the changes in chlorophyll content and nitrogen status and in turn measures the amount of biomass accumulation. A field experiment was laid out at the Research Farm of ANGR Agricultural University, Hyderabad. The reflectance observations were taken using a hand-held ground radiometer at an interval of 15 days beginning from 30 days after sowing (DAS) until harvest of the crops. The plant pigments were determined simultaneously using DMSO (dimethyl sulphoxide) method in the laboratory. The experimental results revealed the influence of plant pigments on spectral reflectance of maize, groundnut and soybean. It was observed that there was an increase in chlorophyll- a, chlorophyll- b, total chlorophyll and carotenoid content up to flowering and thereafter chlorophyll- a content declined at a faster rate than chlorophyll- b towards physiological maturity. With the increase in concentrations of chlorophyll and carotenoids, there was a decline in spectral reflectance of the blue band (450-520 nm) and the red band (620-680 nm). Whereas, NIR (near-infrared) reflectance in the case of soybean and groundnut was found to be higher than that of maize by 11% and 2%, respectively. This was attributed to canopy cover of soybean and groundnut crops, where the soil was fully covered with vegetation. In case of maize, due to wider spacing, the soil exposure is greater, which results in low reflectance values of the NIR band. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is linearly related to total chlorophyll content and the growth stages of a crop up to flowering. The NDVI differs significantly during the peak vegetative growth period among the three crop types. The study revealed that the significant differences in reflectance of maize, groundnut and soybean in the red and NIR bands were influenced by concentrations of chlorophyll- a, chlorophyll- b and carotenoids, which indicates the photosynthetic behaviour of the crops.