Effect of fluorescence characteristics and different algorithms on the estimation of leaf nitrogen content based on laser-induced fluorescence lidar in paddy rice.

Paddy rice is one of the most significant food sources and an important part of the ecosystem. Thus, accurate monitoring of paddy rice growth is highly necessary. Leaf nitrogen content (LNC) serves as a crucial indicator of growth status of paddy rice and determines the dose of nitrogen (N) fertilizer to be used. This study aims to compare the predictive ability of the fluorescence spectra excited by different excitation wavelengths (EWs) combined with traditional multivariate analysis algorithms, such as principal component analysis (PCA), back-propagation neural network (BPNN), and support vector machine (SVM), for estimating paddy rice LNC from the leaf level with three different fluorescence characteristics as input variables. Then, six estimation models were proposed. Compared with the five other models, PCA-BPNN was the most suitable model for the estimation of LNC by improving R and reducing RMSE and RE. For 355, 460 and 556 nm EWs, R was 0.89, 0.80 and 0.88, respectively. Experimental results demonstrated that the fluorescence spectra excited by 355 and 556 nm EWs were superior to those excited by 460 nm for the estimation of LNC with different models. BPNN algorithm combined with PCA may provide a helpful exploratory and predictive tool for fluorescence spectra excited by appropriate EW based on practical application requirements for monitoring the N status of crops.