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Highlights • A novel combined carotenoid/chlorophyll ratio index (CCRI) in the form of CARI divided by CI red-edge for the assessment of the ratio of Car to Chl content was proposed. • CCRI showed consistently accurate and robust estimation of the ratio of Car to Chl content with varied measured datasets acquired at both the leaf and the canopy scale. • Correlation between leaf chlorophyll and carotenoid content could affect the estimation accuracy of CCRI on the assessment of the ratio of Car to Chl content. Abstract Accurate estimation of the ratio of carotenoid (Car) to chlorophyll (Chl) content is crucial to provide valuable insight into diagnoses of plant physiological and phenological status in crop fields. Studies for assessing the ratio of Car to Chl content have been extensively conducted with semi-empirical approaches using spectral indices. However, spectral indices established in previous studies generally relied on site- or species-specific measured data and these indices typically lacked sufficient estimation accuracy for the ratio of Car to Chl content to be used across various species and under different physiological conditions. In this study, we propose a novel combined carotenoid/chlorophyll ratio index (CCRI) in the form of the carotenoid index (CARI) divided by the red-edge chlorophyll index (CI red-edge): The value of the index is illustrated using synthetic data simulated from the leaf radiative transfer model PROSPECT-5 and with extensive measured datasets at both the leaf and canopy level from the ANGERS dataset and winter wheat and maize field experiments. Results show that CCRI was the index with the highest correlation with the ratio of Car to Chl content in PROSPECT-5 simulations (R2 = 0.99, RRMSE = 8.65%) compared to other spectral indices. Calibration and validation results using the ANGERS and winter wheat leaf level data showed that CCRI achieved accurate estimation of the ratio of Car to Chl content (R2 = 0.52, RRMSE = 14.10%). CCRI also showed a good performance (R2 = 0.54, RRMSE = 17.08%) for estimation of the ratio of Car to Chl content in both calibration and validation with the winter wheat and maize canopy spectra measured in field experiments. Further investigation of the effect of the correlation between leaf Chl and Car content on the performance of CCRI indicated that variation of the correlation affected the retrieval accuracy of CCRI, and CCRI might not be very sensitive to changes of the ratio of Car to Chl content with low values (<0.10). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaf carotenoids content (LCar) is an important indicator of plant physiological status. Accurate estimation of LCar provides valuable insight into early detection of stress in vegetation. With spectroscopy techniques, a semi-empirical approach based on spectral indices was extensively used for carotenoids content estimation. However, established spectral indices for carotenoids that generally rely on limited measured data, might lack predictive accuracy for carotenoids estimation in various species and at different growth stages. In this study, we propose a new carotenoid index (CARI) for LCar assessment based on a large synthetic dataset simulated from the leaf radiative transfer model PROSPECT-5, and evaluate its capability with both simulated data from PROSPECT-5 and 4SAIL and extensive experimental datasets: the ANGERS dataset and experimental data acquired in field experiments in China in 2004. Results show that CARI was the index most linearly correlated with carotenoids content at the leaf level using a synthetic dataset (R 2 = 0.943, RMSE = 1.196 μg/cm 2 ), compared with published spectral indices. Cross-validation results with CARI using ANGERS data achieved quite an accurate estimation (R 2 = 0.545, RMSE = 3.413 μg/cm 2 ), though the RBRI performed as the best index (R 2 = 0.727, RMSE = 2.640 μg/cm 2 ). CARI also showed good accuracy (R 2 = 0.639, RMSE = 1.520 μg/cm 2 ) for LCar assessment with leaf level field survey data, though PRI performed better (R 2 = 0.710, RMSE = 1.369 μg/cm 2 ). Whereas RBRI, PRI and other assessed spectral indices showed a good performance for a given dataset, overall their estimation accuracy was not consistent across all datasets used in this study. Conversely CARI was more robust showing good results in all datasets. Further assessment of LCar with simulated and measured canopy reflectance data indicated that CARI might not be very sensitive to LCar changes at low leaf area index (LAI) value, and in these conditions soil moisture influenced the LCar retrieval accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment and application of a spectral library is a critical step in the standardization and automation of remote sensing interpretation and mapping. Currently, most spectral libraries are designed to support the classification of land cover types, whereas few are dedicated to agricultural remote sensing monitoring. Here, we gathered spectral observation data on plants in multiple experimental scenarios into a spectral database to investigate methods for crop classification (16 crop species) and status monitoring (tea plant and rice growth). We proposed a set of screening methods for spectral features related to plant classification and status monitoring (band reflectance, vegetation index, spectral differentiation, spectral continuum characteristics) that are based on ISODATA and JM distance. Next, we investigated the performance of different machine learning classifiers in the spectral library application, including K-nearest neighbor (KNN), Random Forest (RF), and a genetic algorithm coupled with a support vector machine (GA-SVM). The optimal combination of spectral features and the classifier with the highest classification accuracy were selected for crop classification and status monitoring scenarios. The GA-SVM classifier performed the best, which produced an accuracy of OAA = 0.94, Kappa = 0.93 for crop classification in a complex scenario (crops mixed with 71 non-crop plant species), and promising accuracies for tea plant growth monitoring (OAA = 0.98, Kappa = 0.97) and rice growth stage monitoring (OAA = 0.92, Kappa = 0.90). Therefore, the establishment of a plant spectral library combined with relevant feature extraction and a classification algorithm effectively supports agricultural monitoring by remote sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]