Dr C. Mariano Cossani1,2,3, Dr Raul Gimenez2,4, Dr Nicole Dron5, Dr Lachlan Lake1,2,3, Prof. Victor Sadras1,2,3
1School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide, URRBRAE, Australia, 2South Australian Research and Development Institute, Urrbrae, Australia, 3College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, 4University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, 5Tamworth Agricultural Institute, Department of Regional NSW, Calala, Australia
Biography:
Research Scientist working on crop physiology and abiotic stress adaptation at SARDI. My research experience encompasses aspects of resource capture, resource use efficiency of cereals and pulse crops, and adaptation of crops to climate change. I am also interested in the use of proximal and remote sensing applied to crop management and plant breeding.
Abstract:
Capture and efficiency in the use of radiation are commonly used to estimate crop biomass and yield. The fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the canopy (fAPAR) correlates with Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), therefore remote sensors can be used to monitor fAPAR. In this work, we calibrated a phenotyping method for estimating fAPAR with NDVI in chickpea. We simultaneously measured NDVI and fAPAR in 272 experimental plots in Kapunda (SA) from early vegetative to advanced reproductive stages during 2022 and 2023. fAPAR ranged from 4% to 99.8% and NDVI ranged from 0.12 to 0.82. A lineal fAPAR-NDVI model returned r2 = 0.87, with a marginal improvement using an exponential model accounting for the saturation of NDVI. Phenotypic differences in fAPAR were detected in a sample of 25 chickpea cultivars. Our results could be upscaled to remote sensors to phenotyping radiation capture and radiation use efficiency with complementary measurements of biomass or photosynthesis-related traits.