High-Throughput Switchgrass Phenotyping and Biomass Modeling by UAV

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology is an emerging powerful approach for high-throughput plant phenotyping field-grown crops. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is a lignocellulosic bioenergy crop for which studies on yield, sustainability, and biofuel traits are performed. In this study, we exploited UAV-based imagery (LiDAR and multispectral approaches) to measure plant height, perimeter, and biomass yield in field-grown switchgrass in order to make predictions on bioenergy traits. Manual ground truth measurements validated the automated UAV results. We found UAV-based plant height and perimeter measurements were highly correlated and consistent with the manual measurements (r = 0.93, p < 0.001). Furthermore, we found that phenotyping parameters can significantly improve the natural saturation of the spectral index of the optical image for detecting high-density plantings. Combining plant canopy height (CH) and canopy perimeter (CP) parameters with spectral index (SI), we developed a robust and standardized biomass yield model [biomass = (m x SI) x CP x CH] where the m is an SI-sensitive coefficient linearly varying with the plant phenological changing stage. The biomass yield estimates obtained from this model were strongly correlated with manual measurements (r = 0.90, p < 0.001). Taking together, our results provide insights into the capacity of UAV-based remote sensing for switchgrass high-throughput phenotyping in the field, which will be useful for breeding and cultivar development.