QUANTIFYING LODGING PERCENTAGE, LODGING DEVELOPMENT AND LODGING SEVERITY USING A UAV-BASED CANOPY HEIGHT MODEL

Abstract. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used, and open new opportunities, in agriculture and phenotyping because of the flexible data acquisition. In this study the potential of ultra-high spatially resolved UAV image data was investigated to quantify lodging percentage, lodging development and lodging severity of barley using Structure from Motion techniques. The term lodging is defined as the permanent displacement of a plant from the upright position. Traditionally lodging quantification is based on observations that need, and vary with observers in the field. An objective threshold approach was proposed in this study to improve the accuracy in lodging determination. Across breeding trials, manual reference measurements and UAV based lodging percentage showed a very high correlation (R² = 0.96). In addition, the multi-temporal lodging percentage development was used to estimate the recovery rate and to determine the influence of different lodging events. Based on the parameter lodging percentage an approach was developed that allowed the assessment of lodging severity, an information that is important to estimate the yield impairment. Lodging severity can be used for insurance applications, precision farming and breeder research. This trait, together with differentiated recovery are novel traits next to lodging severity that will aid the selection for genetic lines.