Assessing the Effect of Drought on Winter Wheat Growth Using Unmanned Aerial System (UAS)-Based Phenotyping

Drought significantly limits wheat productivity across the temporal and spatial domains. Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) has become an indispensable tool to collect refined high resolution imagery data. A 2-year field study was conducted in 2018 2019 determine effects of drought on canopy growth winter wheat. Weekly UAS data were collected using red, green, blue (RGB) multispectral (MS) sensors over a yield trial consisting 22 cultivars both irrigated dryland environments. Raw-images processed compute features such as cover (CC) height (CH), vegetation indices (VIs) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Excess Green (ExG), Red-edge (NDRE). The more severe than differences years irrigation levels visible measurements. CC, CH, VIs, measured during grain filling, positively correlated with (r = 0.4–0.7, p < 0.05) years. Yield VIs 0.45–0.55, environment, but correlations non-significant 0.1 −0.4), except for CH. shows that high-throughput can be used monitor