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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Davis, California » Crops Pathology and Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #385301
Research Project: Resilient, Sustainable Production Strategies for Low-Input Environments

Location: Crops Pathology and Genetics Research

Title: Detecting short-term stress and recovery events in a vineyard using tower-based remote sensing of photochemical reflectance index (PRI)

Author
item WONG, CHRISTOPHER - University Of California, Davis
item BAMBACH, NICOLAS - University Of California, Davis
item ALSINA, MARIA - University Of California, Davis
item McElrone, Andrew
item JONES, T - Boston University
item BUCKLEY, THOMAS - University Of California, Davis
item Kustas, William - Bill
item MAGNEY, TROY - University Of California, Davis

Submitted to: Irrigation Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/22/2022
Publication Date: 2/15/2022
Citation: Wong, C.Y., Bambach, N.E., Alsina, M.M., McElrone, A.J., Jones, T., Buckley, T.N., Kustas, W.P., Magney, T.S. 2022. Detecting short-term stress and recovery events in a vineyard using tower-based remote sensing of photochemical reflectance index (PRI). Irrigation Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-022-00777-z.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-022-00777-z

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Frequent drought and high temperature conditions in California vineyards necessitate plant stress detection to support irrigation management strategies and decision making. Remote sensing provides a powerful tool to continuously monitor vegetation function across spatial and temporal scales. In this study, we utilized a tower-based optical remote sensing system to continuously monitor four vineyard subplots in the Central Valley of California. We compared the performance of the greenness-based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the physiology-based photochemical reflectance index (PRI) to track variations of eddy covariance estimated gross primary productivity (GPP) during four stress events between July and September 2020. Our results demonstrate that NDVI was invariant during stress events. In contrast, PRI was effective at tracking the short-term stress-induced declines and recovery of GPP associated with soil water depletion, increased air temperature and poor air quality during fires. Canopy-scale remote sensing can provide continuous real-time data, and by exploiting physiology-based vegetation indices such as PRI, can be used to monitor variation of photosynthetic activity during stress events to aid in management decisions.