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In-season biomass estimation of oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) using fully polarimetric SAR imagery

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Abstract

Accurate estimation of crop biophysical and biochemical parameters during crop growing seasons is essential for improving site-specific management and yield estimation. The potential ability of fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data in estimating above-ground biomass of oilseed rape was investigated in this study. The temporal profile of different scattering intensity and polarimetric features during the entire growing season was identified with ground measurements. A polarimetric feature, relying on the polarimetric decomposition method, was put forward to estimate the biomass of oilseed rape. Validation results revealed great potential with a determination coefficient (R2) of 0.85, root mean squared error (RMSE) of 41.6 g/m2, and relative error (RE) of 28.5% for dry biomass, and an R2 of 0.76, RMSE of 527.4 g/m2 and RE of 28.6% for fresh biomass. Moreover, the use of full polarization SAR data was compared with single and dual polarization SAR data. The results suggest that when full polarization SAR data is available, a simpler model, higher saturation point and better accuracy can be achieved in biomass estimation of oilseed rape, which highlights the importance and value of polarimetry information in quantitative crop monitoring. This study provides guidelines for in-season monitoring of crop growth parameters with SAR data, which further improves crop monitoring capability in adverse weather conditions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Open Research Fund of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 2015LDE003), National Natural Science Foundation of China (61661136003) (Grant No. 41401477), 03-Y20A11-9001-15/16, and UK STFC Newton (Grant No. PAFic:Precision Agriculture for Family-farms in China).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Beijing, 100097, China

    Hao Yang, Guijun Yang, Chunjiang Zhao & Xinting Yang

  2. School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Hao Yang, Rachel Gaulton & Zhenhong Li

  3. Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, 100091, China

    Hao Yang & Erxue Chen

  4. School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    James Taylor

  5. Satellite Applications Catapult, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 0QR, UK

    Daniel Wicks & Andrea Minchella

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  1. Hao Yang
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  2. Guijun Yang
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Correspondence to Guijun Yang or Chunjiang Zhao.

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Yang, H., Yang, G., Gaulton, R. et al. In-season biomass estimation of oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) using fully polarimetric SAR imagery. Precision Agric 20, 630–648 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-018-9587-0

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