Estimation of nitrate nitrogen content in cotton petioles under drip irrigation based on wavelet neural network approach using spectral indices

Abstract Background Estimation of nitrate nitrogen (NO3 −–N) content in petioles is one of the key approaches for monitoring nitrogen (N) nutrition in crops. Rapid, non-destructive, and accurate evaluation of NO3 −–N contents in cotton petioles under drip irrigation is of great significance. Methods In this study, we discussed the use of hyperspectral data to estimate NO3 −–N contents in cotton petioles under drip irrigation at different N treatments and growth stages. The correlations among trilateral parameters and six vegetation indices and petiole NO3 −–N contents were first investigated, after which a traditional regression model for petioles NO3 −–N content was established. A wavelet neural network (WNN) model for estimating petiole NO3 −–N content was also established. In addition, the performance of WNN was compared to those of random forest (RF), radial basis function neural network (RBF) and back propagation neural network (BP). Results Between the blue edge amplitude (Db) and blue edge area (SDb) of the blue edge parameters was the optimal index for the estimation model of petiole NO3 −–N content. We found that the prediction results of the blue edge parameters and WNN were 7.3% higher than the coefficient of determination (R2) of the first derivative vegetation index and WNN. Root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) were 25.2% and 30.9% lower than first derivative vegetation, respectively, and the performance was better than that of RF, RBF and BP. Conclusions An inexpensive approach consisting of the WNN algorithm and blue edge parameters can be used to enhance the accuracy of NO3 −–N content estimation in cotton petioles under drip irrigation