Field Research on the Spectral Properties of Crops and Soils

This report describes the experiment design, data acquisition and preprocessing, data base management, analysis results and development of instrumentation for the AgRISTARS Supporting Research Project, Field Research task. It reports results of several investigations on the spectral reflectance of corn and soybean canopies as influenced by cultural practices, development stage and nitrogen nutrition. Results of analyses of the spectral properties of crop canopies as a function of canopy geometry, row orientation, sensor view angle and solar illumination angle are presented. The objectives, experiment designs and data acquired in 1980 for field research experiments are described. The development and performance characteristics of a prototype multiband radiometer, data logger, and aerial tower for field research are described