Effect of sensor view angle on the assessment of agronomic traits by ground level hyper-spectral reflectance measurements in durum wheat under contrasting Mediterranean conditions

The objective of this work is to study the effect of changing the sensor view angle on spectral reflectance indices and their relationships with yield and other agronomic traits. Canopy reflectance spectra of 25 durum wheat genotypes were measured with a field spectroradiometer at two view angles, nadir and 30degrees, from anthesis to maturity in two years and two water regimes. Nine spectral reflectance indices were calculated from reflectance measurements for correlation with yield and several agronomic traits. At off-nadir position more reflected radiation was collected, associated with the reflective characteristics of stems. The performance of the indices predicting the yield and the agronomic traits varied as a function of sensor view angle, and were moreover affected by leaf area index (LAI) value. At high LAI, simple ratio (SR) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), calculated at off-nadir position, were better predictors of traits related to the density of stems and poorer predictors of traits related to green area. On the other hand, at low LAI the indices normalized pigment chlorophyll index (NPCI) and water index (WI) were better predictors of yield and all the other traits when the sensor view angle was at nadir, whereas no differences due to sensor angle were accounted for the other three indices. The different performance of indices at low and high LAI is discussed.