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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #262496
Title: Spectral measurements of photosynthetic efficiency

Author
item MIDDLETON, ELIZABETH - National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA)
item YEN-BEN, CHENG - Collaborator
item HUEMMRICH, KARL - University Of Maryland
item ZHANG, QINGYUAN - University Of Maryland
item CAMPBELL, PETYA - University Of Maryland
item CORP, LAWRENCE - Sigma Space Corporation
item Kustas, William - Bill
item MARGOLIS, HANK - Laval University

Submitted to: International Symposium on Recent Advances in Quantitative Remote Sensing
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/20/2010
Publication Date: 5/5/2011
Citation: Middleton, E.M., Yen-Ben, C., Huemmrich, K.F., Zhang, Q., Campbell, P.K., Corp, L.A., Kustas, W.P., Margolis, H.A. 2011. Spectral measurements of photosynthetic efficiency. In: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Recent Advances in Quantitative Remote Sensing, September 27-October 1, 2010, Torrent, Spain. p. 845-850.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The photosynthetic efficiency of plants was examined for plants in two very different canopies, a USDA cornfield having an instrumented flux tower in Beltsville, MD, USA and a coniferous forest in British Columbia, Canada, included in the tower network of the Canadian Carbon Program. Basic field studies were conducted at both sites with high spectral resolution radiometers to determine spectral indices that were well-correlated to leaf and canopy-level photosynthetic light use efficiency (LUE). LUE is the ratio of gross primary production (GPP) and the photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the canopy (APAR), or GPP/APAR. We focus here on the Photosynthetic Reflectance Index (PRI), a normalized difference index that uses two narrow green spectral bands. We present diurnal, seasonal, and directional results for the PRI in both vegetated systems.